


Looking Glass

by harpydora, Rimbaum



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Biology, Alternate Universe, Body Dysphoria, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Post-Sburb, Species Swap, Transformation, Troll Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-21
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:15:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harpydora/pseuds/harpydora, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rimbaum/pseuds/Rimbaum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After-the-end AU. When the kids and trolls get to inhabit a new world together, their bodies change and they all have to get used to it. Of all of them, John seems to be having the hardest time adapting to the changes.</p><p>(Now with <a href="http://harpysnest.com/images/lg%20shipping%20chart.png">comprehensive shipping chart</a>, since keeping track of all the relationships in tags would be a little awkward.  Chart will be updated as relationships change.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So we have this massive headcanon for what all is going on with their changes. The trolls have changed too, but not quite as much as the humans. Their changes will be introduced gradually.

The first few hours of life on their new world were fascinating for John. He was so busy with exploring the outward physical differences - their skin was much darker, with a grayish sort of tint to it, and they all had horns now! - that he didn't bother trying to go take a few private moments to really look over all the differences. It wasn't until Dave said something about how much more comfortable he was in his new body than in his old one that he thought something else might be going on.

Still, there was no reason to worry! Whatever it was, it couldn't have been all that big of a deal. John waited until the others were settled firmly in their own respective houses or hives before looking in the mirror for himself.

Shirtless, he couldn't tell too much of a difference. He still had nipples! Not that nipples on a guy ever did anything, but still. It wasn't until he pulled off his pants that he noticed the biggest difference. No belly button! That was certainly new. But when his eyes dropped lower, he froze. At first, he wasn't entirely sure what to make of what he saw; between his legs was a weird bulge that looked for all the world like a fleshy sports cup, except, upon closer examination, there was a slit at the top. What in the world was this?

Tentatively, he poked at the slit with one finger and nearly jumped back in shock when these little wiggling things slipped out and tried to wrap around it. Oh god what the hell?! Were these somehow a part of him? He watched in no small amount of horror as the little tentacles (for lack of a better word) wound around his finger, too shocked to do anything. The sensation was utterly alien to him, even if it did feel kind of nice. In a weird way.

The feeling definitely confirmed it, though. Those little things were part of him. He snatched his finger back (whoa, that's really, really weird) and they retreated back into what he could only now assume was what Karkat called his "bone-bulge." He'd probably have to ask about that.

At this point, John was almost afraid to see if there were any further differences he should know about, but he decided that he was already committed to it. Making a mildly disgusted face, he let his hand skate over the bulgey-thingy and down further between his legs. He hissed in surprise when he felt his fingers brush against something else, something warm that felt kind of nice when he rubbed it gently, but oh my god fingers should not go inside your body no matter how nice it feels!

He fell on his ass this time as he jumped back from the mirror, his face the picture of abject horror. Dear god, what the hell was that? Why did he even have that? Sure, it felt kind of nice, maybe even nicer than the tentacle thingies, but guys weren't supposed to have those! At least, human guys didn't have those! He tried to probe between his legs again, just to confirm what was there, but found that he couldn't make his hand go past his bone-bulge. Instead, he sat on the floor, shaking and disgusted.

Dave had to have been pulling his leg about liking this better, he just had to. There was no way anyone in their right mind would feel more comfortable like this. He'd have to have a talk with the other humans in the morning and see what their reactions were.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John had slept pretty fitfully, but when he went to meet up with his friends and discuss his weird new body, all the trolls were there too, chatting about survival stuff. He couldn't just pull all of them away at once! Dave. Dave would have to be the one to start with. This was just a prank after all, right?

"Hey, Dave, can I talk to you alone for a few minutes?"

Dave glanced up, face completely unreadable (as usual), and shrugged. "Sure. Don't see why not." It was still a little odd to see him with darker hair and skin, but at least his mannerisms hadn't changed. He strolled over to meet John, hands in pockets. "'Sup, Egbert?"

Suddenly, John felt tense. How do you ask your best bro about what's going on in his pants? There was no good way to broach the subject, at least not that he could find. He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt and toed at the ground. "Hey, um..." He took a deep breath. Best to just get it over with. "Hey, Dave, I know you're my bro and everything, but I really didn't appreciate that prank you played on me last night. It was pretty much the least cool thing ever."

Dave shrugged one shoulder, making a non-committal noise. "Dunno what you're talking about, John."

"You know," John said, a little more vehemently than he'd intended. "Wh-when you said you were more comfortable like this. I figured that meant not much had changed, but everything's really... um, really weird now! And I'm definitely not okay with it."

Something in Dave's posture seemed to change, and the coolkid took his hands out of his pockets to set a hand on John's shoulder. "Sorry, man. I wish I could write it off as some sort of irony or a prank, but I meant it. I didn't wanna say anything, because it was really embarrassing, but I wasn't born a guy. Head didn't match up with the parts, and even having freaky alien tentacles for a dick is better than not having one at all."

He lifted up his sunglasses and rubbed at his eyes, his breath hitching slightly before starting to even back out. "I'm sorry you're freaked out, man. I know how you feel. But you're still a guy, okay? You're still you. Just... try to remember that, okay?"

All John could do was stare. He'd heard Dave's words, certainly, but he was not entirely sure his brain was processing them correctly. What in the world had he meant by not being born a guy? John had been relatively sure that Dave was about the coolest guy he'd ever known. It just didn't make sense. "I'm not sure what you're saying," he said at last.

"I'm saying I was born with lady parts when my brain said I'm a dude, Egbert. I'm a transsexual. Or was. I don't think there's any real difference between guys and girls now."

"Wait, you what?" Dave's words finally sank in, and John couldn't help but feel both surprise (because it was Dave) and a stab of betrayal (because he'd thought Dave was his best friend). "When did that happen?" he asked, his mouth getting a little ahead of his brain. At Dave's chilly look, he felt his face flush, and he dropped his eyes. "Sorry, stupid question. But, I mean, why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you trust me?"

Dave shrugged, shoving his hands back in his pockets and very pointedly looking away from John. "I trust you, John. It wasn't about that. It's just not the kind of thing I thought was all that important. Before now, we only ever knew each other online. What parts you got or don't got don't really matter on the internet, do they?"

"I... I guess that's true," said John, still not looking up at his friend. Still, he felt a little hurt, even though Dave was right. "No, I mean, you're right. So I guess you really understand this. Um, a lot."

Dave nodded and wrapped an arm around John's shoulder. "S'alright, man. Just remember what I said. You're still you. You're still a guy, no matter what freaky alien junk you got down there now."

"Y-yeah." John nodded, though he wasn't quite convinced. "You're right. I'm still me!" He tried to smile reassuringly, but his lips caught on his weirdly pointy teeth (wow, having buck teeth really sucks now) and he hissed instead. "Ow. This stinks."

"Sure does. It's still better than how I was before. Come on, let's get back with the rest of the group before Karkat has an aneurysm." Dave nodded towards the rest of the group, and started heading back on his own.

For a few moments, John stood by himself. This had definitely not been what he'd planned for when they won the game together with their troll friends. And he definitely didn't have any other choices. Feeling a little defeated (and maybe a lot awkward), he shuffled back toward the group. It was going to be a long day.


	2. Chapter 2

The days passed in relative peace, most of the inhabitants of the newly created world concerning themselves with using their remaining grist to build up for their civilization. John contributed, too, but his mind was constantly elsewhere. Every morning, he woke up in his new body, and every morning he felt less comfortable in it. There were all sorts of things that served to remind him of how this body was not really his own. When he bit his tongue, he almost inevitably drew blood. When he barked his shin on a piece of furniture, he barely registered it. Everything tasted different. Though he definitely still needed glasses, his eyes were not the same (even beyond the whole being-able-to-see-at-night-thing), and he nursed a low-grade headache almost constantly.

While John was thrilled that everyone was alive and well and that they were all here together, he was, in short, absolutely miserable. Even the things John initially found interesting (like having pointy ears or the spindly antelope horns atop his head) began to only serve as reminders that his body was the enemy.

He started spending less time with the others, holed up in his room. Being around the others made him feel awkward, and even though he still hated his body while he was alone, at least he didn't have to let the others see how bad he felt, how skinny he was getting, or the bags underneath his eyes. John was almost as bad as Karkat!

It wasn't like he could stay locked up forever, though. Dave kept coming in and making sure John wasn't hurting himself and was basically eating all right. Nothing could really be done about the lack of sleep, though, but at least he made sure John didn't waste away.

John was sure that his friends were worried. He knew in part because Dave reminded him, often. But he couldn't bring himself to do much of anything beyond his basic duties to their community.

Days turned into weeks. Eating became a habit, though his body stubbornly refused to gain weight. Dave had to remind him less and less to take care of basic functions. He only saw the others when he was working. Even when Karkat instituted mandatory "SHITTY CULTURAL EXCHANGE/MOVIE NIGHTS" (largely an excuse to watch rom-coms, it seemed), John didn't attend.

That proved to be a mistake.

At sunrise, John woke to insistent pounding on his door. "Stop twiddling your horns and open your god damn door, you bulgesniffing nooklicker!" Karkat yelled through the wall. If only to get a bit of quiet, he opened the door to let his fellow friendleader inside.

"Um, hi Karkat." John gave a weak smile, fidgeting and wanting nothing more than to run and hide. He hated being seen like this, and every second he had to spend in anyone's presence - even the trolls, who had changed in their own ways - only made him think of how well they were coping. How he wasn't fit to be their friendleader, if he was breaking apart this easily.

Karkat snarled. "You weren't at mandatory cultural exchange night, you lumpish half-witted hedgebeast. Do you know the meaning of the word 'mandatory?' Because I'm pretty sure 'if I feel like it' is pretty much the opposite of 'mandatory.'" He poked John in the chest with one finger. "So you'd better have a fucking good excuse, or I'll pull your protein chute out through your ears and then strangle you with it!"

John winced, both at how boisterous Karkat was being and at the thought of being strangled with his own esophagus. "Oh, um, right," he stammered, "sorry about that. I guess I just forgot?" Telling Dave about his awkwardness was one thing, but Karkat was completely different! John just didn't think he could find the right words.

Karkat's expression didn't soften, per se, but it did shift to something a little less aggressive. "Listen, assface, I know something is wrong. I was thinking maybe you'd feel better if you got the chance to force everyone to watch your shitty earth movies with you, but you didn't even fucking show up." As he talked, he continued poking John in the chest, driving him away from the door. "So now, here I am, ordering you to tell me what the ever-hating fuck is going on in that bent think-pan of yours."

Oh jeez, Karkat knew something was wrong. It probably wasn't that hard to figure out, and John hated having everyone worry about him but he just... "I can't do this, Karkat!" he blurted out, then started blushing and went over to sit on his couch. Every time he went out with his friends, he was horrendously afraid. He was exposing weakness to everyone else, and worried that they were going to just jump on him about it!

Even now, every nerve he had screamed for him to get Karkat out of his home before the other boy could attack him for being weak. Logically, it was a silly notion, but John found it difficult to argue with instinct when Karkat looked ready to spit nails while glaring down at him. He split the difference by scooting further down on the couch and increasing the distance between them.

When Karkat claimed a seat near him, John flinched. "Oh jeez, Karkat, I'm fine, you can go now." He pulled one of the throw pillows into his lap almost like a shield. "Please, just go?"

It seemed weird when Karkat leaned in and flared his nostrils, inhaling and... sniffing him. "What are you doing?"

"I knew it. You've got fear and unease slathered all over you. It stinks, John. How long have you been steeping in those pheromones?"

Startled, John could only blink at his friend owlishly. "I, bluh, what?" he finally managed.

"Oh my god, are you fucking simple?" Karkat grumbled, hand twitching with the visible urge to execute a facepalm. "Wait, wait, no, don't answer that. Jesus fuck, John, this is little grub biology. When a troll gets scared, he secretes fear hormones for other trolls to smell. You stink like fear pretty fucking badly. It's like that really thick icing on crappy grub-cakes."

"O-oh." Well that didn't make him feel any better, knowing that the others could smell just how afraid he was.

Karkat inhaled then exhaled slowly. "Okay, this is getting us the exact opposite of somewhere, so let's try again." He locked eyes with John, expression determined. "What the fuck is going on, Egbert? If you're fine then I'm Pupa fucking Pan."

John stared back, then looked away after a few seconds. "Don't you feel, um... weird? We're all so different now!" True, the trolls had probably changed a lot less than the humans, but everyone was still getting used to all this, right?

His friend shrugged. "I don't get these weird things on my chest, and now I have to turn on a light if I have to use the load gaper in the dark, but it's not that different," he said. "Don't tell me you're weirded out by everyone changing, Egbert." When John's face flushed blue, Karkat leaned forward. "You're kidding, right? Oh my god, is that seriously your fucking problem?"

"It's not everyone else that's the problem! It's me! Everyone's mostly okay with it and I feel like every time I look in the mirror it's not me. This..." John grabbed at one of his horns, almost like he wanted to rip it off. "This isn't me!"

"Hey, whoa, calm down," said Karkat, reaching out and pulling John's hand away from his horn. "Take a deep breath. You are not fucking allowed to do harm to any part of your anatomy here, fuckass, do you hear me?" There was a trace of annoyance in his voice, but his expression was nothing but worried. The weight of the concern he leveled at John was not helping.

John snarled, and his own reaction was a bit of a surprise even to him. But who was Karkat to tell him what he could and couldn't do with his own body? "Don't tell me what to do!"

At first, Karkat's expression looked like Jade appeared out of nowhere and unleashed a brutal upbraid with her newspaper, but the moment passed almost as quickly as it came. It was replaced by something much more feral. His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits and his lip curled back from still pointed teeth. A low rumble emerged from his throat. "I'm your goddamn leader and you're going to fucking listen to me or I will take out your insides and beat you with them until you do." Each word was clipped and hot with Karkat's responding anger.

John knew that he ought to be backing off. He normally would have! But there was something urging him to bare his own teeth in return, to make Karkat back down and leave him alone. "No, we're leaders together, Karkat. And even if we weren't, you can't just come into my home and tell me what I can and can't do!" When did he start raising his voice? For that matter, when did he get so angry?

It didn't matter, because suddenly Karkat was in his face, practically growling. "Fuck you, Egbert, I've been the one fucking leading since we got here! You've been useless and won't let anyone help you, so I don't think you fucking deserve to call yourself leader right now!" Before John could react, Karkat was on top of him and pushing him back into the couch. "And I totally can tell you what you can and can't do because that's what leaders do, grubmuncher!"

He didn't know why, and right then he really didn't care, but John wanted to just... rip Karkat's nubby little horns off and smash his face into the couch. He contented himself with leaning up and biting into the troll's neck in an effort to get him to back off. "Get off me!" His own voice dropped down into a growl, matching Karkat's almost exactly.

Unfortunately, John's actions only seemed to have the opposite of his intended effect. Instead of backing off when John sank his teeth in, Karkat actually had the gall to laugh in his face. He shifted his weight until John's legs were thoroughly pinned under him, then grabbed both of John's wrists. "You want me to get off you? Make me."

No matter how much he twisted or tried to free his hands or legs, John couldn't free himself. It pissed him off, and he nearly screamed in frustration. "I hate you _so much_ right now!" And funnily enough, he meant it. With every fiber of his being, he wanted nothing more than to leave Karkat Vantas nothing more than a bloody smear on the couch. The weirdly detached part of him marveled at the intensity of his newfound feelings for his friend, even as he tried fruitlessly to wrench a hand free and claw his face off.

Karkat bent his neck and inhaled deeply. "Oh, wow, shit, you really do," he muttered almost drunkenly. "Fuck, Egbert, I didn't know you had it in you. Fuck, all right." He growled again, but the quality was different; still aggressive, but with undertones of something John didn't quite understand. Then Karkat's teeth were on his neck, biting down just below where his jaw met the line of his neck and oh fuck that had absolutely no right to feel that good oh jeez.

He made the mistake of sucking in a breath in response to the new sensation.

Suddenly, his nose was overwhelmed by a strange scent utterly unlike anything he'd ever smelled before. It was heady and musky and very much _Karkat_ , and in that moment it was the best thing ever. He took another deep breath, which only served to make him feel light-headed. Karkat had absolutely no right to smell this wonderful. None whatsoever! It was annoying - one more annoying thing on the list of everything he already hated about this whole situation.

Karkat's mouth was still at his neck, so it wasn't hard for John to turn his head and deliver a weak bump with his chin to get his attention. When Karkat looked up at him, his eyes were half-lidded and filled with a smoldering sort of heat that just intensified the hatred in John's bones. John snarled in warning, but Karkat ignored it. Instead he grinned like a shark and oh god his lips were too soft.

John had to fix that. He bit down as hard as he could in retaliation, desperate for more because he'd never felt anything like it before in his life. The low clicking sound this elicited from Karkat only encouraged him further. Things were going perfectly fine until Karkat decided to reach down into his pants.

The strange sensation of his bulge trying to wriggle out of his pants and wrap around his friend's hand was enough to break whatever spell he'd been under. John growled and bared his teeth, his heart pounding in fear. This was the last thing he wanted right now, even if he had been willing up until a few seconds ago.

The change in the quality of John's growling gave Karkat pause. He leaned away, brows furrowed in confusion. "Hey, I thought you were into this," he said slowly, as if words were hard to say. "Did I fuck up somehow?" He let go of John's other wrist and scooted away until he no longer had John pinned. "Fuck."

John was quick to skitter away, eyes wide and teeth still bared in warning. "Get out." He felt like he was going to be sick, but he couldn't let Karkat see that. His friends couldn't know how screwed up he was for being scared of the things that were happening to him. Not just physically, either! Karkat had been just as surprised as him at the honest declaration of hate.

Not only that, he'd kissed another guy. John had never felt anything like that for another guy before. Even girls barely registered as attractive, unless they were super awesome like Liv Tyler, but normal girls weren't like unattainable movie stars. So this sudden desire for, well, anyone really, was a huge change. Just another thing to start hating about himself.

To John's relief, Karkat did not argue. He didn't even look John in the eye as he left, slamming the door behind him. Now he was alone again, with no one to make him scared or confused.


	3. Chapter 3

John was more freaked out than ever. Knowing that the others could smell his fear was bad enough, but he was also just so... _angry_! At Karkat especially, for trying to tell him what he could do, for making him want to kiss and... and... He swallowed nervously and curled up in the bathtub, trying not to look at himself at all.

Baths used to be comforting. Now they were the worst part of his day. His horns kept him from being able to relax in the tub, cleaning himself had become a chore that only reminded him of every little difference that he hated, and the water didn't even feel the same on his tougher skin. Baths had become a giant blinking sign pointing to everything he'd lost when winning the game changed his anatomy.

Less time than usual passed by before John became too disgusted with himself to stay in the water. He wanted to get dressed as quickly as possible, eager to cover himself up so he didn't have to look at most of the worst offenders. Staying inside was boring, but easier than going out and facing the others.

He rushed through dressing, pulling on a worn pair of pajama bottoms and his favorite green slime ghost shirt. Neither garment felt as soft as they once had, but at least the memory of their comforting softness was still there. His internal clock insisted that it was time to perform his eating duties, so he drifted back toward the front of his home on auto-pilot. He was so intent on the task at hand that he didn't realize someone else was in his living room until Dave flashstepped to his side.

"Oh jeez, Dave!" John yelped, hopping backward and almost tumbling over his coffee table. "Don't you ever knock?"

"Knocking would warn you I'm here, man. Can't have you dropping your routine to hurry and eat just because I'm coming over."

Glaring, John busied himself with righting the handful of books he'd managed to knock off the table. "Knocking is the polite thing to do, Dave," he said. He felt a hot stab of annoyance, quickly chased by guilt that he would even stoop so low as to be angry at Dave, of all people. "Sorry."

Dave shrugged, a non-committal jerk of his shoulders. "Whatever. Listen, Egbert, I don't blame you for not wanting to talk with Vantas, but shit, you can't keep going like this."

John's shoulders sagged, and he stopped trying to look busy. Dave knew better than that anyway. "I don't want to do this, Dave! I want to go out and enjoy our new world with my friends. But I just... I can't do it." He was too weak. Karkat was right - he didn't deserve to be called their leader when he was afraid of all of them.

He felt Dave's hand on his shoulder and looked up to meet his friend's gaze. He couldn't quite tell what was going on behind the ever-present shades, but there was a little worried line between Dave's eyebrows. "I hate to do this to you, bro, but I am officially not taking 'no' for an answer here. You are gonna come outside with me, and you are gonna socialize whether you like it or not. This isolation bullshit isn't gonna help you. Believe me, I know." Dave squeezed his shoulder. "You're not alone, Egbert. We're still here for you. Even fucking Vantas. Just take a deep breath, let it out, and we'll go outside together."

There was a moment where John viciously resented being told what to do (again), but the rational part of his mind stomped the feeling down. His eyes slid shut and he did as instructed, breathing deeply through his nose and letting it out through his mouth.

The scent he picked up this time was as similar to Karkat's as an orange was to a green slime pogo. The only real similarity was that it was distinctly a _Dave_ scent, but instead of making his heart race, it suffused him with a warm sense of peace. It was almost as if the part of him that felt most anxious had suddenly been unplugged, leaving a peculiar calm behind. Distantly, he wondered if he should feel upset by this new development but quickly decided that he didn't care. He was more relaxed than he had been in the last three weeks, and in no state to question it.

He heard an almost nervous chuckle and opened his eyes again to see Dave looking bemused. "Fuck, I didn't think that'd work."

"Bluh?" John found he didn't care enough to look for actual words, so he left it at an interrogatory-sounding syllable.

Dave snorted, patting him on the back. "I just had the most awkward fucking crash course on being a moirail from Zahhak and Nepeta, but I was half thinking they might be trying to put one over on me. Guess I was wrong."

Moirails? What was Dave talking about? That was one of the weird troll quadrants, humans didn't have those sorts of things! Except, a small part of him remembered that he wasn't human anymore. They were all much more troll than human, maybe he did need to really learn about the stupid quadrants now.

As if sensing his thoughts, Dave nodded. "Yeah, quadrants are evidently a thing we do now. I just got righteously bitched out for not being a good moirail to you. That's the one where we're supposed to make sure neither of us does an Olympic gymnast back-flip somersault off the handle." Wait, why was Dave Strider looking _ashamed_ all of the sudden? "And I guess if you're this bad, Zahhak was right. I'm the world's shittiest moirail."

What. No. Dave wasn't shitty at anything! He was too cool for that. "No, Dave. I mean... how often did you have to come over and shove food down my throat? I'm the one being a shitty friend." John looked down, then towards the door. "Um. I guess if you're there with me, I can go out for a little while."

He didn't realize Dave had taken his hand until their fingers were laced tightly together. The feeling of the contact cemented the calm center in his mind. Suddenly, the way Nepeta constantly rode piggy-back or draped herself over Equius's shoulders made so much more sense. Dave adjusted his shades with his free hand, making sure they were in their proper place. "That's the spirit, Egbert. Let's go."

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Being outside with Dave around him was a definite improvement over trying to brave it on his own. John was still nervous and fidgety, but there was reassurances that he'd be fine. They weren't even all verbal, either! Just a gentle hand on his shoulder or Dave's comforting scent were enough to calm him down.

The others were definitely noticing, and most of them did their best to appear non-threatening. He could still tell that some of them were impatient and angry, but it was more... by the way they smelled, now. At least he was learning about this whole pheromone deal, now.

Karkat was the hardest one to put up with. Every time they started arguing, even about the littlest things, he smelled... different. Enticing, sort of, like John just wanted to smash the troll's face in and lick up the candy red blood. And there was something else there, too. An urgency to do _something_ that he'd never felt before.

When he finally decided to bring his feelings to Dave (he still had a hard time thinking of him as a moirail), he worried that Dave was going to injure himself laughing. "Dave, I'm serious here! This is really upsetting, and it's making it hard to be friends with him."

Finally, Dave clawed his way back up onto the couch, still snickering. John glared at him, but there was thankfully no real heat to his annoyance. It was just plain old annoyance at his best friend being kind of a dick. In some ways, it was actually kind of... nice. Normal. "Oh, man, you are precious," Dave said, putting his arms around John in an exaggerated sort of hug. "Come here my little babby, papa Strider will make it all right. Shh, only preciousness now."

John shoved him away. "Daaaave, be serious."

"I am being serious here. You're a horny little bastard and you don't even realize it. Little John's finally hitting puberty!"

It felt like all of his blood rushed to his face. "What? N-no way!" he protested. There was absolutely no way whatsoever that he was horny, let alone horny for Karkat Vantas. No way, no how. Right?

Despite himself, his thoughts went back to the morning Karkat had barged into his home. He'd never once thought of Karkat in that way, but this new lens Dave had given him brought too many things into sharp focus. The way it had felt oddly good to have Karkat on top of him, biting him... He buried his face in both hands and groaned. "Daaave, why is this happening to me?"

Dave shrugged, but he put an arm around John's shoulders and helped some of the nervousness leech away. "I honestly dunno, man, but I'm guessing those pheromones are having an effect on your libido."

"That doesn't explain why I want to do all this other stuff to him, too," John said, no longer feeling the need to draw out any vowel sounds in anguish. "I mean, I've never really, y'know... had much experience with... things... before, but I'm pretty sure it's not normal to be horny while wanting to break someone's nose into itty-bitty pieces and lick up the mess! And that's not even the worst I've thought about." He shuddered, and a thought struck him.

"Oh my god, Dave, do I... am I wanting to be kismesisiswhatsits with Karkat?"

Dave fidgeted at that, and John could smell his uncertainty. "Well, maybe. I dunno, I haven't felt those kinds of urges for anyone. I can ask him for you, so you don't have to, you know, try and talk to him and deal with it while he can smell you all pissed off. Don't want a hatemakeout happening if you're not ready for it."

With Dave's arm around his shoulders, it was easier not to freak out at the idea (and the fact that he was seriously considering it). "O-okay. Yeah. I think maybe that'd work out pretty well. I mean, if it isn't too much trouble."

"Nah, not any trouble at all for my main man." Dave patted John on the shoulder, then stood up. "I'll go ask him."


	4. Chapter 4

It was never hard to find Karkat. All you had to do was stand still for five seconds and wait for the inevitable strings of explosive "FUCKSHITGRUBSUCKINGBULGEMUNCHER!" So that was what Dave did. He followed the cursing back to its source, who at this particular moment appeared to have dropped something heavy on his toes and was flailing at the offending item with all his might. He couldn't tell what the thing was other than gross-looking, which meant it was likely some troll piece of shit.

Eh, being nice would probably make things go smoother, so Dave bent down and helped Karkat lift the piece of shit off his foot. With his toes freed, Karkat let out a pained hiss and sat down right in the middle of the grass. "All right, Strider," he said, "what the fuck do you want?"

"Why do you gotta assume I want anything?" Dave asked, putting on airs of being offended. "Can't a guy just want to help his fucking friendleader? Maybe I couldn't stand to hear you wailing half-way across the planet."

"Shut it, Strider. We both know that's a lie, so get to the fucking point." Karkat snarled, baring his teeth and making some weird, annoying little growl.

"All right, fine, you try to be fucking nice..." Dave sat cross-legged in front of Karkat. "Here's the deal. I am coming to you right now with a complete and total lack of irony. The words that are about to leave my mouth are 100% serious." He held up a hand to forestall any further input from the other boy. "Gimme a minute. It's a delicate fucking issue. It's been brought to my attention that you are confusing the ever-loving shit out of my moirail here. So I've come to find out if you have hatesexy intentions toward him."

Karkat scowled, sneering at Dave and looking like he was generally trying to keep from strangling someone. "I'm confusing _him_? He's the one that declared his hate and was putting off lust pheromones! Like I was going to just back down from that challenge?" He paused for a second, staring at the expressionless look on Dave's face before baring his teeth again. "Yes, you dumb fuck, I wanted him to be my kismesis from the start!"

Welp. That answered part of John's issues, at least. "Okay, now that's out there..." Dave scoured his brain for an at least vaguely tactful way to approach the subject. Not that he gave any amount of flying fucks about being cordial with Vantas, but he was here on a mission to be a better moirail. "This physically hurts me to say. I just want you to know that I am dealing grievous harm to myself to get these words out of my mouth."

"What the ever-hating fuck are you trying to get at, Strider?" Karkat was not making this any easier on him, not with his constant scowl and bared teeth.

Dave's mouth tightened as he fought off the urge to scowl in return. "Calm your gray little man-titties. I'm getting there. Like I said, this is a delicate fucking issue. If this issue were a science, it would be fucking brain surgery. There is no room for fuck-ups in this issue unless we want to turn the whole thing into a fucking vegetable we'll have to have on life support for twenty years before we tearfully bid it farewell when the grandkids finally pull the fucking plug."

Karkat was, apparently, through with listening. He leaned forward and grabbed at Dave's collar, jerking him closer so their noses were almost touching. "Get. To. The. Fucking. _Point._ "

Almost faster than he could see himself, Dave brought his arms up to knock Karkat away, then scooted backward on his ass. "Get the fuck out of my grill, Vantas. I am trying to ask you really fucking politely to do me a favor and keep your shitty black romance off of my moirail until he knows what the fuck is what. Just a simple little request I'm sure a little wiggler could understand."

If anything, that statement made the angry troll even more pissed. Karkat grabbed at Dave's horns, trying to wrench him into the ground. "That's not your fucking job! You can't fill two quadrants with the same person, it doesn't work that way!"

Feeling a surge of rage at Karkat's grubby fingers wrapped around his horns (he studiously ignored the twinge of accompanying fear that the other boy was controlling his movements), Dave snarled and launched himself forward. He felt his forehead connect with Karkat's chin, smelled the tang of blood lace the air, and heard a strangled grunt. "Let go of me right the fuck now or I will end you!"

Before there could be any retaliation, Dave felt strong hands physically prying him away. "Uh, I don't think you two should, uh, really be fighting like this." Tavros. The brown blooded guy Dave had had rap battles with. Certainly easier to deal with than the nubby-horned asshole trying to get in his best friend's pants.

At arm's length, much of the rage seemed to drain from Karkat's body, but Dave still felt the glare. Since the brown kid had gone to all the trouble of pulling them apart, though, he refrained from antagonizing Karkat further. Instead, he brushed the dirt off his shirt. "Whatever. I got better shit to do."

As Dave started to walk away, Tavros stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Uh, mind me asking what this was about?"

What the hell, maybe someone who'd been raised with quadrant bullshit (who wasn't Karkat-fucking-Vantas) could be useful? He adjusted his shades and shrugged. "I'm trying to get Karkles to keep his hate-bulge away from John until my best bro can get used to his new alien hentai futa equipment."

Tavros had the cutesy charm to look awkward at that. "I'm, uh, kind of glad I don't know what that means. But Dave, Karkat's right. It's not really your, uh, place to try and get him to back off. That's what auspistices do."

"What the fuck is an auspistice?" Did trolls just start farting out hard-to-pronounce words to make his life more difficult?

"It's what our former cripple is doing right the fuck now, you flap-nooked bulgeclot. How dense do you have to be to not get that?"

Dave was nearly ready to start bitching Karkat out before Tavros stepped in. Again. "Uh, Karkat, he didn't grow up with the quadrants. I think maybe you should, uh, get off his case. Let him learn from experience."

"Right, okay, so let me make sure I got this straight." Dave held up a hand to keep either of the others from saying anything. "I can't tell Karkat to butt out because I'm the moirail here, so we need to get someone to play Mister (or Missus) Nice Auspistice to make sure _he_ \--" Dave jerked his thumb in Karkat's direction-- "can keep it in his fucking pants?"

"Uhh..." Tavros seemed to be a little lost. He was probably just as terrible at all this romance crap as ~~he was at rapping~~ Dave felt.

"Why do things even need to be kept as platonic hate right now? John was fucking into it!"

"You might not have noticed, Vantas, but Egbert makes a really shitty kinda-troll," said Dave with a sneer. "So maybe you have all this experience hate-fapping with your tentabulge, but _some_ people aren't even used to wanting to break your face. Which, by the way, I don't get at all, because your face looks really breakable all the fucking time."

Almost before Karkat lunged again, Tavros insinuated himself more firmly between them. "Uh, I think that's enough. _Both_ of you." When Karkat began making a bizarre kind of rumbling sound, the brown kid actually glared at him. "No. I might not, you know, be the best at concupiscent stuff, but I've got, um, a lot of good experience at ashen stuff. You go home right now. We'll pick out a, uh, nice auspistice for you and John."

"What the pitying fuck, Nitram!" exclaimed Karkat, throwing his arms up in what was possibly one of the most hilarious expressions of exasperation Dave had ever seen. Pure comedy gold. It made him miss his SBaHJifier. "It's not like picking out hive-warming furniture, 'Oh, by the way, we went down to the grub-market and we saw the cutest fucking auspistice ever and just had to buy it for you, here you go asshole!'"

"Did it ever occur to you that as his best friend for the last couple years, I might actually know who'd be good for the job?" Dave snarled. He was done dealing with this asshole, and turned around to leave. Fuck whatever else Vantas tried screaming at him, he was going to help John out the best way he knew how.


	5. Chapter 5

**CULTURAL EXCHANGE MOVIE NIGHT FUCKASSES.**

The letter that showed up on John's door was not a surprise. The fact that Dave had volunteered the movie for the human's side of the cultural exchange was, though. "Where's everyone meeting up, and when?"

Dave stretched out on the couch, one arm around John's shoulders. The contact was still comforting, and helped him feel a bit more at ease in his own body. "We all decided we'd be crashing here at your place, Egbert. Expect them to start coming in the next hour."

John's eyes widened, and he backed away from his best pal in panic. "What? Here? Why?"

"Same reason I don't knock," replied Dave with a shrug. "There's no escaping this. You will be caught in our web of shitty cultural exchange and movie night fuckassery. Don't worry, I picked us a good one."

"Should I even ask?" John looked up and down Dave's relaxed form on the couch, worried that this was going to be some ironically terrible movie. "Does it at least have a lot of action in it?"

"Bro, this movie has so much goddamn action in it that if it got made by some shitty troll movie company, its title would be eighteen pages long."

"I thought all troll titles were eighteen pages long!"

John was pretty sure Dave rolled his eyes, even if he couldn't see it behind the shades. "Whatever, man. It's the greatest action movie of all time. Every other action movie wishes it could be a third as brilliant as this fucking film."

"What is it?" John finally relaxed enough to sit back down and just cling to his bro. Moirail. Whatever it was they were now.

"You'll find out when we watch it." Dave slung his arm around John's shoulders again. "More insurance to make sure you stick around."

"Have I ever mentioned how much you suck?"

His moirail snorted. "Only all the fucking time. According to you, I am the performer of the most righteously sick fellatio three universes have ever seen. Bitches and hos fall at my feet to receive the tender mercies of my most delicious lips. Bodices rip and trousers drop. No bulge goes un-serviced."

John rolled his eyes and hit Dave in the shoulder. "Daaaave! That's a bit weird, don't you think?" Silent speak for _can we not discuss this right now?_

Dave ruffled his hair, more silent speak for _sorry for being an accidental fuckass._ They didn't bother picking up the conversation thread again. Instead, John just enjoyed the peace before their friends started to arrive.

This amounted to only a handful of minutes before the sound of polite scratching at the door-frame interrupted the moment. "AC would like to apurrlogize fur the inpurruption, but can we come in?"

John looked up towards the door, then smiled a little. "Hey Nepeta! Um..." He shifted a little, trying to make room for Equius on the couch. "Come on in, I guess!"

While the door swung open gently, the girl on the other side of it practically exploded into the room. She took two bounding steps before twitching her tail (seriously, how did she _do_ that?) and launching herself through the air at John and Dave. "Hi, John! Hi, Dave!" she chirped, hugging them both fiercely.

John laughed and returned the hug. He could see why Nepeta was such a good moirail for Equius - she smelled like a walk in the woods on a sunny day, and it was very relaxing. Not as much as Dave, of course, but she wasn't his moirail, was she? "Thanks for coming over, I guess?"

Equius ducked through the door-frame, arms crossed over his chest. His expression was almost as impossible to read as Dave's had once been-- before everything happened, at least. "We appreciate your generosity, offering your hive for tonight's exchange. However, I must be frank and admit that we arrived early for other reasons."

"That's right," said Nepeta, pulling away and holding both John and Dave at arm's length. "We wanted to check up on you two and make sure you're adjusting to being moirails okay. It was purrfectly pawful how unhealthy you looked, John!"

John blushed, his face turning a nice shade of blue to match his eyes. "Haha, sorry? I'm just... I'm still adjusting. I'm getting better, though!" He stood up and grabbed Dave, slinging his friend over his shoulder. "See?"

The strangled sort of squawk that came out of Dave's mouth was priceless. "What the shit, bro! Put me down! I am not a sack of potatoes."

"I must request that you not use such coarse language in front of my moirail, lowblood." Equius had a distinct frown, his broken teeth pressing into his lip.

"No, I don't think I will, Dave. And Equius, we're all the same now, remember? The hemospectrum doesn't really mean anything anymore!" John turned around so Nepeta could play with Dave's untied shoestrings. Now he was just being a jerk to his friend, but it was too much fun to resist.

In protest, Dave went boneless in John's grasp and slithered off his shoulder. "All right, fun time's over. The Dave amusement park is now closed."

A quiet knock on the door-frame alerted them to more newcomers. "Sorry, the door's open. Are we interrupting?" From behind Equius's large frame, a pair of ram horns peeked out, followed by Aradia's inquisitive face.

"Gal, you got perfect timing. What else could be expected from the other time player?" Dave nudged Nepeta away and went to the door to bring her inside. Or rather, it seemed, the person who was with Aradia.

"Hey, Sol, you in a good mood today?"

John heard Sollux make a derisive noise. "Get bent, Strider." His lisp messed up Dave's last name, but that was pretty normal. Aradia cast a sharp glare in his direction, but he made no apologies.

"Jeez, fine, don't get your panties out of a twist, I can work with that." Dave growled. John couldn't stand to see his friend so upset, to be so _hurt_ (he was getting better at the whole smelling emotions thing, really!), so he moved over and set a hand on Dave's shoulder.

"C'mon, Dave." He tugged his friend away from the door. "Let's make some popcorn!"

It looked like a smartass remark almost made it past Dave's lips, but he thought better of it. "Sure. You'll need some extra hands to carry it all. Captor can pack it away like you would not _believe_."

"Fuck off," Sollux snarled. "Like you didn't just have me alchemize like twenty boxes of chilled roe cubes behind KK's back? I don't see anyone's lusus around."

Equius quirked an eyebrow. "What purpose would a lowblood without a lusus need so much lusus food for?"

Dave's cheeks flushed a deep brick-red. "I swear to god, Captor, I'm going to rip your eyeballs out and feed them to you if you say one more word."

John's eyes widened as he caught a whiff of Dave's scent. "Whoa, Dave, I didn't know you, uh, hated Sollux that way!"

Somehow, the color of Dave's cheeks deepened even further. "Y'know what, I'll get the shitty popcorn by myself, thanks." Then he was gone, flashstepping into the kitchen before Equius could chastise him about his language again.

John frowned, trying to decide if he should follow Dave anyway, but a familiar cackle and shouty voice interrupted his thoughts. Terezi was bothering Karkat as they both came into his house. He was still angry at his fellow friendleader about the way he'd been treated the last time, and Terezi... well, he wasn't as comfortable as he thought he'd be around her. Turns out, killing him in an alternate timeline was reason enough to not like the girl.

And, of course, he'd managed to alienate the person he'd been using as a lifeline. Just great. Already, he could smell the warring aromas that described in broad strokes the mental states of each individual present, though he couldn't quite identify everyone's personal scent yet.

All right, that was a little white lie. He knew Dave's like the back of his hand (which was a shitty simile, now that he didn't know the back of his hand that well at all anymore),Karkat's was this tangy-sweet cinnamon-y scent (like the cinnamon crumb cake that came out of a Batterwitch box), and Nepeta's was still at least mildly comforting. Despite the soothing power of her scent, though, John still felt his heart pound in his chest. He didn't know _how_ Karkat had managed to get ahold of his least favorite baked concoction of evil, but it pissed him off.

John tried to make his way through the growing crowd, and then yanked Karkat into the hallway, away from the others just a little bit. "God I hate you." That baked-goods scent should be all that was needed for an explanation. And being this close to Karkat, breathing it in... he could feel that weird sense of urgency returning. The desire to draw blood and smash his friend's face into a wall and something else he still couldn't quite identify.

Karkat shoved John against a wall, muffling John's surprised yelp with his mouth. "Hmmmph!" And then hands were in his hair, claws scratching against his skin and causing sensation that was so deliciously _there._ After so long of touch not being the same, of everything seeming dulled, it was a welcome change. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, could feel the heat radiating off Karkat's body through his clothes, and he felt like he needed more.

John felt his hands drifting up under Karkat's shirt almost of their own volition, felt his nails bite into Karkat's skin, felt Karkat shudder against him. He took advantage of the distraction to push himself off the wall and reverse their positions. There was no surprised yelp to smother, though, only a warning rumble in Karkat's chest that made John's heart beat faster.

One of Karkat's hands grasped John's right horn and jerked it viciously to the side. Instinctively, John's fingers tightened in response, digging into the other boy's hips and eliciting the most delicious husky gasp from him. Karkat was undeterred, however; his teeth were once again grazing the more sensitive skin of John's neck. He hissed, drawing in a convulsive breath to try to steady himself. That was a huge mistake.

The aroma of Karkat mixed with the stench of Betty Crocker crashed over him, filling his nostrils and making his head swim. The overwhelming, visceral need to see Karkat bleed took over. He wrenched his head out of Karkat's grasp and slammed his forehead into the bridge of Karkat's nose. Instinctively he knew the blow had drawn blood, knowledge reinforced when he heard Karkat's explosive swearing.

It seemed, though, that doing that was enough to attract attention from the others. Rose pulled Karkat away, and John blinked a few times, trying to figure out when she'd gotten here. "Uh. Hi Rose..." Wow, she really helped take the edge off Karkat's infuriating Batterwitch scent.

"John, I would like to speak to Karkat alone for a moment. Do you mind?" John nodded vaguely, meandering back towards his own living room to try and make sense of what had just happened.

It seemed while he'd been... distracted (yeah, that's it) by Karkat, the rest of his friends had arrived. He scanned the living room, taking stock of the situation while he waited for his head to clear. Equius had actually claimed a spot on the floor for himself with Aradia leaning against his shoulder and chatting cheerfully with Kanaya. Nepeta perched on the arm of the couch, a leather-bound sketchbook balanced on her knees and a thoughtful expression on her face. Dave had returned from the kitchen and was flinging popcorn at a laughing Sollux, who had already caught a handful of kernels with his psionics. Tavros and Gamzee sat back-to-back next to the coffee table, Gamzee with his eyes closed and head resting on Tavros's shoulder. Jade had staked out two spare chairs and was currently engaged in what appeared to be a good-natured discussion with Feferi about what looked to be a pair of Squiddles plushes (though one of them looked disquietingly like Charles Dutton).

His spirits lifted when he spotted Vriska off to one side, then sank again when he noticed Terezi seated cross-legged on the floor, playfully prodding her with her cane. The chances of him being able to walk over and start a conversation dropped to near-zero. All of it combined left him feeling awkward and out of the loop, like he didn't belong with anyone in here having such a good time. Pretty bad considering they were all guests in his home.

Trying to ignore the nagging feeling of alienation, John skirted the edges of the gathering unnoticed. Without Dave's reassurance, breathing started requiring conscious attention. Maybe no one would care if he just absconded back to his room for a while? Sure, he wouldn't get to see what Dave had picked, but he wouldn't be imposing on anyone else's enjoyment, either.

It took a few minutes, but John did finally decide that maybe that was the best course of action. He turned around, ready to head back to his room, and noticed a lone troll sitting in the corner, glaring at all the others. John tried to remember who it was, even as he moved closer and sat next to him. "Eridan, right?"

The troll's eyes jerked up, first startled, then wary. "What's it matter if I am?" His words were peculiarly accented, sounding sort of like Russian but not quite. John noticed the ear fins, much like Feferi and Rose's. Yup, definitely Eridan, even if he wouldn't admit it.

"I guess it doesn't matter either way," John said slowly, deciding to humor the sea dweller. "I just want to make sure I'm not forgetting your name like a douchewangle."

"What the--" Eridan made a strange guttural burbling sound that could've been "glubbing"-- "fuck is a 'douchewangle?'" He continued to eye John suspiciously.

John shrugged and sat down facing Eridan. "It's another word for 'jerk,' but stronger," he replied. "It's probably like three steps down from 'insufferable prick,' but two steps up from 'humongous ass-face.'"

"I'm pretty sure you're just makin' that up, but whatever. Why'd you invite--" there was that "glubbing" sound again-- "everyone to your hive if you're just gonna abscond? For that matter, why the fuck are we even here? Why don't you leave your hive?"

John was pretty sure he was turning a good shade of blue at the questions. "Um, I didn't really have a choice! Dave invited everyone and just sort of sprang it on me last-second. He thought if I knew earlier, I'd try to find a way out of it..." Dave had been entirely right, of course, but John wasn't going to kick everyone out who was already here.

Eridan snorted. "Looks like you're tryin' to find a way out of it anyway, abscondin' like this. So, why don't you ever leave your hive?"

Oh. John had been kind of hoping that he wouldn't have to answer that question. It wasn't something he liked thinking about! "Um, I just feel... wrong? I hate how different my body and my thoughts are now, and I can't..." his voice cut out, and John looked away, trying not to let Eridan see the blue-tinted tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes. That was showing weakness, and from what he'd heard, Eridan would pounce on that in a heartbeat.

He heard the sea dweller hum thoughtfully. "That's right, you guys used to be pink an' squishy an' hornless, right?" John only nodded in response, not quite trusting his words. "I can see that bein' upsettin', I guess. I'd hate to wake up an' not have gills or fins or somethin', or have extra parts I didn't have before I went to sleep." There was a pause, then he heard Eridan shift closer.

John hazarded a glance at the troll, curiosity overcoming the need to hide his emotions. The wariness had evaporated, leaving something that John lacked the ability to read. On top of that, he didn't know Eridan's scent quite well enough to understand whatever pheromones he might've been giving off. It was a little confusing after he'd just started getting used to that!

They stared at each other for what seemed like ages, John's brain trying and failing to process anything useful about the situation. Finally, Eridan reached out and laid a hand flat against John's head in the space between his horns. They stayed like that for another impossibly long moment, Eridan's face and scent unreadable (but at least not upsetting), until his fingers curled in John's hair and gently scratched the skin right at the base of his horns.

At first, it was strange. Another strange sensation in a body he didn't want. But after a few seconds, John's eyes slipped shut and the strangest noise came from the back of his throat. That startled him out of his little trance, though, and his eyes snapped open in shock, only to see Eridan... smiling? "You like that, don't you?"

"I, uh, what?" John stammered in the most inelegant way he could manage. Way to make himself look like a simpleton! He felt blood rising to his cheeks again. "Um, I mean, yes, that felt kinda nice."

The damage was already done, though, because Eridan chuckled. It sounded a little like the weird glubbing noise, but it was definitely a sound of amusement. "See, now you know it's not all bad." He ruffled John's hair before withdrawing his hand. "Maybe we can find you other things to like, too?"

Before John could properly parse the question, a bellowing shout of "SHUT UP YOU MONUMENTAL FUCKASSES, IT'S CULTURAL EXCHANGE TIME!" echoed from the living room. "Oh, shit, I guess that's our cue," John said, jumping to his feet. Without thinking, he grabbed Eridan's hand and hauled the troll up as well. "C'mon, before he starts yelling about us not being there."


	6. Chapter 6

Dave held up a large clay jug, like it was something sacred they should all respect. "Okay guys, this is the holy grail here. It probably tastes like ass, but this is booze, and it's strong enough to get drunk off of at a reasonable pace. You all have me and Sollux to thank for this gift to our new world." Sollux had already brought an armful of glasses and set them out on the table to be filled.

Vriska flipped her hair over her shoulders, reaching out to grab a glass. "I suggest a drinking game!"

"Oh hell fucking no, babe. We're all gonna die if you suggest we take a shot of this stuff every time someone swears. Just everyone drink at their own pace, awright?" Dave snatched the glass from Vriska's hand, actively frowning.

"Oh, a drinking game can't hurt," John said, laughing. "I mean, how bad could it be?"

His friend shrugged, pressing a glass full of cloyingly sweet-smelling liquid into his hands."The word 'fuck' alone is used over two hundred times in this thing, Egbert. You really wanna down two hundred plus shots of this?"

Equius shifted uncomfortably. "Are you certain that this is an appropriate film to be showing in mixed company, lowblood?"

Nepeta scowled at him and headbutted his shoulder. "AC is pawsitive that she has heard that word fur more than two hundred times already," she said with a pout.

Eridan rolled his eyes. "I think between me, Gam, and Kar, everyone's heard it more than that."

"That does not change the fact that it is extremely lewd," Equius grumbled, but his shoulders slumped forward in defeat.

"All right. Our movie tonight is full of action, justice, politics, religion, and brotherly love." Dave held up a DVD case. "We're watching Boondock Saints. Who all here has seen it?" No one raised their hand - even the other (former) humans looked intrigued. "Fucking sweet. This is gonna be awesome."

At first, the movie kept having to be paused so that Rose, John, and Dave could try and explain the religious bits to the trolls. Jade did the best she could, but being raised away from it for most of her life, she didn't quite understand as much as the others. Terezi was fascinated by the brothers' obsession with justice, but that was fairly well expected. Equius had naturally started sweating at the introduction of the bartender while Jade squeaked at the fact that Doc was cussing so much.

Nepeta just about squealed when she deduced that Connor and Murph were so obviously moirails. Both Vriska and Terezi agreed that Agent Smecker was a fantastic character, but both for different reasons. Terezi liked his insight, so similar to her own, while Vriska laughed about his flair and mannerisms.

When it came time for the first real hit, Karkat raged about how nothing in the scene was even physically possible, while Vriska hollered about the brothers having "ALL THE LUCK!" and Terezi had to be dragged away at the execution scene because she was slobbering all over the television screen. "The justice is so delicious!" she cackled as her reasoning.

And then... "Fuckin'- What the fuckin' fuck. Who the fuck fucked this fucking... How did you two fucking fucks... FUCK!" John just couldn't help himself at that scene, and the first words out of his mouth were "It's Karkat!"

"EGBERT YOU FUCKASS I WILL END YOU!"

"See?!" John dissolved into giggles even as he tried to avoid the pillow being thrown at him. Getting Karkat to rage at him was really funny and extremely gratifying. And, if he were honest with himself, it wasn't that difficult. A few others in the room chuckled as well, which only added to Karkat's comical emoting. Finally, Dave had to bang his fist on the coffee table to get everyone to settle down.

The scene in the porn shop (predictably) caused Equius to send his moirail in search of a towel, though only then did John realize it was likely that he did it to prevent Nepeta's exposure to more objectionable material rather than because he truly needed such a thing. It was such a weird feeling, learning to understand these troll relationships!

Even Karkat had to admit brilliance when the brothers and Rocco faced off with Il Duce and Smecker was walking through the whole thing. "Fucking brilliant piece of cinematography, I didn't think humans could pull it off!" were his words once all the extra stuff was cut out. Eridan scoffed at the wasted ammunition because of the "inelegant, short-barreled firearms." John gave him a light punch in the shoulder at that.

Nepeta actively wailed in despair when Rocco was killed, citing her "OT3" being destroyed. No one wanted to ask, but Feferi and Jade tentatively offered their shoulders for her to cry on. It seemed pretty obvious that they were both more confused than anything.

When Il Duce entered the room while the twins were praying, everyone but Dave erupted in surprise. Dave paused the DVD until the noise subsided, saying, "All right, all right, this is like the single fuck-up the movie made because they cut out the scene with their mom that makes this scene make sense. Now shut the fuck up so we can get to the best scene in cinematic history. I don't even mean that ironically." No one seemed to notice (or at least care) that his words were a little slurred and his shades a little skewed on his face.

The movie resumed once everyone settled down again. The silence only lasted for a handful of minutes.

When the twins and Il Duce took the courtroom, Terezi and Vriska both squealed in girlish delight, clinging to each other and bouncing in their seats. By the time the final shots rang out, Karkat sat with his jaw hanging open, speechless. Jade (with a not-so-faint green flush to her cheeks) startled everyone around her by leaping to her feet, pumping her fists, and yelling, "FUCK YES!" Equius was watching the screen, a look of grudging approval on his face. John heard others murmuring amongst themselves, but he couldn't really pick much out of the din other than some general agreement that it wasn't a bad film. Not the best ever, but not bad.

For his part, John thought it would've benefitted from a bit more Nic Cage, but Willem Defoe being crazy made up for it a little. He didn't get how Dave thought it was the greatest action movie of all time, but he could definitely admit that the action was fun enough. But seriously, how could any movie claim to be the best with so few explosions? And it definitely could've used a romantic interest (no matter what Nepeta thought, brotherly moiraillegiance three-ways did _not_ count).

John tried to stand and stretch. Despite Dave's admonitions before the movie started, he'd drained his glass entirely by the film's end, and all he felt was vaguely warm (though that might have been from Eridan snaking an arm around his shoulders at some point). When he disentangled the sea dweller's hands from the fabric of his shirt and managed to get himself upright, John finally understood what Dave had meant. He felt a little like he had when he'd gone to an amusement park with his dad and they'd ridden a freefall ride. "Whoa, uh, wow, that's different." He held out his arms to steady himself, but gravity had other plans.

His head swam; suddenly he found the world was sideways and he was sprawled across Eridan's lap. "Oh, whoops, hi!"

Eridan stared down at John, his eyes a little wider than usual. "Why are you on my lap?"

"Um, it seemed like a good idea at the time?" John felt a nervous giggle bubble up in his throat. "I guess I'm a lot worse at standing up than I thought!" He was pretty sure his cheeks were flushed blue, and he could tell that Eridan's were pretty purple as well. Dave sure hadn't been kidding about that stuff!

"I think you should be goin' to sleep. I'm pretty sure your moirail's gonna kill me if I let you stay here."

Dave loomed over the back of the couch, eyes unreadable behind his shades. "You are correct, Ampora," he said without a trace of emotion. "C'mon, John, you are going to march straight to your room and sleep this off before you do someone regrettable."

Eridan had the grace to flinch and help John to his feet again, where Dave kept him with a steadying hand on the shoulder. Everything was sort of spinny and fuzzy around the edges, so John allowed his friend to lead him to bed. At least bed would be safe. And warm. And soft... Yeah. Definitely bed time.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was terrible being left out of the loop. Karkat's antagonizing and confusing actions weren't helping, either, so John decided that the best course of action was to try and be an active part of things again. He was co-leader, too. He had just as much say in all this as his friend. Not only that, but he had a point to prove. He had to show Karkat that he was still worthy of the friend-leader title. He had to show Karkat that the other boy couldn't order him around anymore.

The drive to prove himself capable was surprisingly good at keeping him focused while out in the open or in groups. For a few days, it was even enough to keep cordial around Karkat (who smelled more and more like Betty Crocker concoctions every time he came within a few yards). But when he couldn't keep himself from wanting to smash in his friend's nose for much longer, John tried to confront Karkat when the others were off working on gathering fresh supplies rather than depleting their grist at the alchemiter.

"Hey, Karkat? Can we try to talk like, you know, _normal_ people for a few minutes? No hitting each other or hissing or growling. Just... for a few minutes?"

For a moment, Karkat stared at him. With his eyebrows drawn downward and his lip twitching, it made John feel like a rock in Karkat's shoe: irritating in the extreme. After what seemed like forever, the troll just snorted and rolled his eyes. "What do you want say, Egbert? We both have better things to do than exchange verbal diarrhea, so make it quick."

"Look, Karkat, we're supposed to be friends. Friends don't... hate each other. At least human friends don't!"

"I’m not sure if you’ve looked in the mirror recently, but I’m pretty sure neither of us is human. I’d even go so far as to say that we’re all, shockingly enough, not human, even your obnoxious moirail and his obnoxious sister." He closed the gap between them grabbed John’s hand, jerking it up to eye-level. "What part of this is human, John?" He dropped John's hand and tweaked the pointed tip of his ear. "I don't remember this being human, either. And hey, what are these?" Before John could react, Karkat's hands were on his horns.

John cringed and tried to jerk away. He really didn't like Karkat touching his horns, or pointing out all the ways he was _different_ now. Karkat's grip held firm, though. "You've got to face facts here, Egbert, you are not human, and it is perfectly normal to hate some of your friends. _Especially_ the ones you might want to be your kismesis."

Without warning, Karkat released John's horns, twisted at the hips, and slugged John across the jaw with enough force to knock him down. Stars exploded behind John's eyes as pain blossomed at the point of impact. Distantly, he heard Karkat sneering, "Now _fight me_ , Egbert! Or I swear to god I will rip off your arms and beat you unconscious with them!"

For a moment, John could only stare at his friend. He'd been punched. It had actually _hurt_. Nothing, not even the bloodied lips that he kept finding himself with, hurt that much. It was strange, after sensations being so dulled compared to what he was used to.

He _liked_ it. John snarled and launched himself at Karkat, throwing out any rational thought and left only with the desire to hurt and be hurt in return.

Karkat met his charge with a swiftly upraised knee, catching his solar plexis (if his new anatomy could be said to have such a thing) and knocking all the air from his lungs in a hoarse "whuff." Rather than curl in on himself, though, John lashed out with a fist that connected squarely with the fleshy area between Karkat's ribcage and hip. The other boy let out a pained grunt, staggering back a few steps. John took the opportunity to put a little distance between them.

"Going to-- going to have to do better than that, Egbert," Karkat hissed through clenched teeth.

"Watch me." John charged again, wanting to get his hands around Karkat's nubby little horns and force his friend to the ground. He could do it, too, if he could just grab hold. Stupid Karkat and his stupid ugly nubby little horns.

This time, Karkat was slower, either from the blow to his side or because he was too focused on gloating, though John didn't care which. He brought an elbow up to connect with John's face, but John just knocked it aside as if it were nothing. After that, he grabbed hold of Karkat's hair and forced him towards the ground. God, he wanted to slam his friend's face into the dirt repeatedly, and resisting the urge to do it was harder than it seemed. He didn't _really_ want to hurt Karkat, did he?

Taking advantage of John's sudden indecision, the troll boy twisted free of John's grasp, grabbed John's face between his hands, and slammed the broad, bony part of his forehead into the bridge of John's nose. Time froze when they both heard the wet crunch of bone breaking. It took a moment for John's brain to process what had happened, nearly swooning when the pain finally appeared. Distantly, he realized he was bleeding. Profusely.

Karkat's hands still gripped his face, pulling John's head inexorably downward until they were almost nose-to-nose. John was too focused on the pain to put up any real resistance. They stayed in that position for what felt like forever, with John's blood dripping off the tip of his nose, until Karkat finally moved. His tongue was shockingly warm against the skin of John's chin, the sensation sending a weird tingle down his spine.

If Karkat felt the shiver, he gave no indication, instead using his grip on John's face to keep his head steady while he lapped up the blood. There was a tiny part of him clamoring for his attention, repeating over and over that friends do not headbutt friends and then lick their faces clean, but his mind was a million miles away. The only thoughts his brain had room for were how delightful the throbbing pain felt compared to dull almost-nothingness, and how much he enjoyed the warm, slick feeling of Karkat's tongue on his skin. He didn't even have room to feel surprise when a low rumble between a growl and a purr started in his throat, which only seemed to egg Karkat on.

Karkat let go of John's face, hands moving up through his hair and coming to rest again on John's horns. Caught entirely off-guard while he swam in a sea of endorphins, it didn't even occur to John that he should resist. Instead, his head followed Karkat's insistent tugging until John found himself on the ground with Karkat straddling him. Dazedly, John rested his hands on Karkat's hips. "Karkat..."

"Shut up, Egbert," the troll growled, wrenching John's head to one side by the horns. "I'm enjoying myself." His lips brushed John's earlobe, eliciting another strange growl-purr. "And by the smell of it, you're enjoying yourself, too. So just shut up."

John felt Karkat's hips suddenly grind against him and oh holy fuck that felt _good_. The feel of Karkat's bulge pressing against his, even through their clothing, chased all thought from John's mind. Fuck, it was wrong for anything to feel this good. He didn't realize he tilted his hips upward to meet Karkat's motions until the troll growled heavily in his ear and nipped at the exposed skin of his neck. "Oh, fuck, Karkat..."

The warm, aggravating-but-good weight of Karkat being on top of him was suddenly pulled away. John blinked, panting and purr-growling as he tried to regain his senses. Why was Rose there? He wanted Karkat back so he could bite at his lips and draw candy red blood and lick it up. He could only assume it was because they'd been fighting and Rose didn't like how far they'd taken things? That was stupid. He needed to talk to someone who knew these sorts of feelings better.

Even through his broken nose, he could smell Dave when his best friend knelt by his side. "C'mon, Egbert, up you go. Can you stand?"

"I'm _fine_ , Dave," John replied irritably, though he accepted Dave's help getting to his feet. Sure, he was a little miffed because of his fight with Karkat, but it was more because he'd been separated from the brawl than anything else.

Dave did not look convinced, cocking his head to one side and almost certainly scowling behind his cool facade. "Go get Zahhak to look at your face, dude. You're a fucking mess."

John gingerly touched his nose, felt the blood still oozing. Okay, he could admit it, he probably did look like a mess, but he felt like the best he'd ever been since all these changes happened to him. If only he could just prove that to Dave! A frustrated noise lodged in his chest. "Right, okay, fine, I'll go find Equius. Spoilsport."

A thought struck him then. "Hey, Dave, can you do me a favor first?" When Dave didn't move, John grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into a fierce hug. Despite the stinging, he buried his nose in Dave's shoulder and drew in a deep breath. The scent and feel of his moirail were heady, but nothing compared to the sharp _there-ness_ of the aches Karkat had inflicted. John found himself laughing as he released Dave and started making his way to Equius's hive.

First order of business: get his nose looked at so Dave wouldn't worry. Second order of business: find someone to discuss these new feelings with who hadn't been human to start with. He had a pretty good idea of whom he wanted to talk to, because there weren't many trolls that he was very comfortable around.


	7. Chapter 7

The number of trolls that John knew, without any doubt, had been in a previous black relationship numbered on a single hand. Just... Eridan and Vriska. It had been mostly successful while it lasted, from what he'd been able to gather. But the problem with going to see Vriska and ask her if this was a normal blackrom feeling was that Terezi would be hanging out with her. That had been happening a lot, and it was pretty annoying. Vriska was his friend! He didn't like being forced away from her because of Terezi's relentless pestering.

So that left the option of going to see Eridan. His hive, like Feferi's and Rose's homes, rose up from the waters of the nearby lake. While John had never been inside, he guessed that at least half of it lay beneath the surface, if not more. Thankfully, all three of the sea dwellers had built their front doors above the water-line, as well as piers leading across the water to them. Face still throbbing (that hadn't gone away even after Equius set his nose and given him a cold pack for his jaw), John marched straight to Eridan's door and pressed the button that he assumed was the doorbell.

There was no response. For a few moments, John waited, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, before he pressed the button again. When there still came no response from the hive, he turned to leave. Evidently he'd been wrong in his assumption that Eridan would be home. Maybe he could catch Vriska separated from Terezi somehow...?

Motion in the water off to the side of the pier caught John's eye. The surface rippled with the passing of something large and gray-ish just beneath it. Curious, he knelt at the edge of the pier to get a closer look; whatever it was, it was at least person-sized, which would make it the largest sea creature he'd seen outside of an aquarium. He kept one hand on his glasses to prevent them from sliding down his nose and into the water as he peered over the edge.

Something came up rather suddenly, nearly causing John to lose his balance and fall into the water. Only a firm grip on his shoulder kept him from tumbling in face-first. "Whoa, John, careful!" A pair of yellow eyes with faintly purple irises stared up at him. It was... kind of weird to see Eridan without his glasses! Come to think of it, Eridan wasn't actually wearing most of his trademark outfit; he barely looked like himself at all. His hair was slicked nearly flat against his head from just having emerged from the lake, with the one lock of purple clinging to his forehead. He was missing his scarf and shirt with his personal symbol, even his shoes. The only part of his typical outfit John recognized were the striped pants, which were understandably soaked.

While John knew on an intellectual level that sea dwellers had several sets of gills (Rose had told him so), it was very different to see them, particularly on an individual who typically kept them covered. Fresh from the water, Eridan's gills still twitched. John could see two sets: six on the neck (three to a side) and ten on his rib-cage (positioned between the ribs). It was... different, and kind of unsettling to watch them try to take in water that was no longer there.

"John, you okay?" Eridan gently shook his shoulder. Oh fuck, had he been staring? Crap, he had been! Thankfully, his face was too bruised for it to matter that he was blushing.

"Uh, yeah, I'm fine. Really! I just wanted to ask you something, that's all."

Eridan nodded, offering John a hand up. "Course, whatever you want to ask. Want to go inside? I got some fish Fef n' me caught."

John accepted Eridan's help to his feet, smiling a little despite himself. "Sure! Fish sounds great." He followed the sea dweller into his hive, gazing at the look of Eridan's gills from behind. They were just so fascinating! He couldn't help but wonder how Eridan managed to keep them covered all the time with the way they continuously twitched as they tried to take in oxygen. Did shirts make him uncomfortable? Rose hadn't mentioned anything about shirts being uncomfortable. Had she?

His train of thought halted when Eridan opened the door to his hive and motioned him inside. "Come on in! Sit down an' I'll get us some fish an' you can ask your questions."

John wandered around, looking for someplace comfortable to sit. The couch, some sort of unholy hybrid between a human one and a troll one, sat in the middle of the floor. Unholy hybrid of troll and human... Actually, that thought wasn't as funny as he first thought it would be. Just depressing. He chose to sit on the floor, away from the offending furniture. The room looked for all the world like a studio apartment, except for a circular hole in the middle that appeared to lead below the water-line.

In short order, Eridan returned with a plate of fish-shaped snacks and what looked like fish sticks. He set the plate down in front of John, then folded his legs underneath himself. His glasses were once again perched on his nose, and his hair had dried out enough that it started to stick up again. The gills on his neck no longer tried to respire, making them look like thin little lines that could have just been unfortunate scars. "So, what did you want to ask?"

Somehow, John's mouth refused to listen to anything resembling his brain, instead uttering the first thing that popped into his head. "I didn't know you had chest-gills. Doesn't that make shirts uncomfortable?"

There was that strange glubbing sound again, unmistakably a chuckle from the quirk on Eridan's lips. "Right after I get out a the water, yeah. Once I'm fully breathin' air again, not really."

"Oh, um, I guess that makes sense." John fidgeted with the hem of one pants leg. Thankfully, Eridan didn't seem to be put off by his really kind of stupid question. Seriously, who asks that kind of thing after the age of five?

"So, I got a question for you," said Eridan, voice snapping John back to reality. "What the hell happened to your face?"

"Right, that's actually kind of what I came here to talk to you about!" John replied, trying and failing to suppress a nervous chuckle. He picked up a fish stick and nibbled on it tentatively to cover up the slip. "See, I kind of was trying to have a civil discussion with Karkat, right? About normal friendships, and how it's not really normal for friends to be friends but hate each other, at least not for me. And then we kind of got into a fight, and he maybe kind of broke my nose. But that's not the important part!"

Eridan glubbed, looking at John a little strangely. "An what is the important part?"

Oh jeez, he was just going about this the wrong way, wasn't he? John sighed, biting his lip to try and figure out how to say all this.

"Glubbin' stop that, or you won't have a lip left." Eridan shifted closer. "Just spit it out an' stop worryin'."

"Is it, uh, normal to feel like you're so... alive after a blackrom fight? You and Vriska are the only ones I know that have had a blackrom relationship, and, well..." Vriska was with Terezi, who was almost as hard to tolerate as Karkat. Almost.

Eridan made another glubbing noise, look of shock on his face. "Are you seriously comin' to _me_ for blackrom advice?"

"Um, yes?"

"Why?"

"Because you've had a blackrom before," John said. He viciously clamped down on the urge to squirm in discomfort. "I mean, I've never even had a regular old human romance, let alone a troll one!"

"It wasn't a very successful blackrom." Eridan frowned, looking up and down John. "Vris cut it off because she said I couldn't handle it."

"But you've _done_ it, right? So you'd know if a certain feeling's normal or if..." He trailed off, suddenly not wanting to give voice to the possibility that his emotions were aberrations like his body.

"Or if you're a freak?" Eridan shook his head, scooting closer to John. "Fightin' with Vris was one a the best feelins ever. I wanted to smash her face in an' kiss her at the same time, an' it just..." He made a sad-sounding sort of glub, looking down. "It was the best thin' an' I blew it. Then I lost my moirail, an' things just went to shit. I am exactly the last person you should ever ask for romantic advice, John."

That sounded... horrible. John felt really sorry for this troll for some reason. Sure, it was all his fault, but didn't that just make things worse? Especially now, since he knew his mistakes. Without a second thought, John nudged the snacks aside and wrapped his arms around Eridan's shoulders, not caring that he was still dripping wet. "It's okay," he said as cheerfully as he could. "You never know what's going to happen! Maybe things will be different now?"

Eridan returned the hug after a few moments. "I appreciate what you're tryin' to do, John, but me an' Vris have already sailed. There's no way she'd have me back, an' I don't blame her one bit."

"What about, um, what did you call it... A matesprit?"

If anything, this made Eridan seem more uncomfortable. "I got even less luck with redrom. I'm thinkin' maybe now that we don't have drones to worry about, I might just let it go."

John frowned at that. Wow, Eridan was pretty convinced he'd be alone for the rest of his life. "Don't give up. I'm sure you'll find someone. Um, eventually." How, though? There were only sixteen of them left. Choices were pretty limited, and the only person John ever saw hanging around the poor guy was Rose. And that was, well... he figured it was the same thing he and Dave had going on. "I mean, there's no way to know what'll happen tomorrow until we get there." He winced; the words sounded hollow, even to his own ears.

"I appreciate what you're tryin' to do, John," Eridan said, pulling back. "But everyfin's okay, reely. I might be lonely, but at least I'm not dead."

Despite the pain, John scrunched up his nose in mock-disgust. "Did you seriously just pun at me?"

Eridan blinked. "Um, yes?"

"You know what this calls for, right?" John grinned, leaning forward deviously.

"Um, not really?" The troll leaned back, eyeing John uncertainly. "Why, what're you plannin'?"

John didn't bother answering, instead throwing himself into Eridan and bowling him over. Once he had the sea dweller prone, he launched his attack. He started in one of the more common spots, running his fingers lightly over the skin under Eridan's arms. When that elicited no response other than a muffled "glub," he moved down, tickling the gills on Eridan's ribcage.

The breathy, glubbing laughter that came out involuntarily was the best thing John had heard. "Ahaha! You are ticklish!" John relentlessly tickled the troll until he had a hard time breathing. Evidently Eridan's sides from the top of his hips to just above his gills were a gigantic zone of ticklish, and John exploited it for all it was worth.

When John was convinced that Eridan wasn't going to fight back, the sea dweller surprised him by squirming away and pulling him down by his shoulders. Still gasping for breath, Eridan retaliated by going right for the fleshy bits between hip-bone and ribcage, the same area John had just been attacking. He squeaked and curled up to protect his ticklish areas before Eridan could get to them, but it was too little, too late. Eridan's fingers were upon him and...

John, used to being picked on for being so ticklish, felt nothing. He could tell Eridan's fingers were there, could feel the light pressure, but that was as far as the sensation went. It was too faint to feel ticklish at all. All the cheerful energy left him in the wake of this realization. He rolled away from Eridan and stared at the ceiling.

"John? Somefin wrong?"

After a few moments, John grunted and shrugged. "Can't feel it. Not like I used to."

Eridan scooted closer, leaning over John with concern on his face. "That's not really a fin that's supposed to happen," he said cautiously. "I just kinda figured it came from bein' sorta human now? Since you humans have stupid sensitivity an' all."

"There was nothing wrong with being sensitive!" John didn't realize he was that upset until the words left his mouth. "It's trolls who are stupid and un-sensitive! I can't feel anything anymore unless I go pick a fight and get my nose broken!"

"Is that what this is about?" Eridan reached a hand into John's hair, scratching firmly with his claws. It felt sort of nice. It felt _there_ , at least, but not as deliciously sharp as fighting with Karkat had. "I told you it's not all bad, you just gotta find new fins to enjoy." With that, he scratched at the base of John's horns.

Just like before, a strange noise escaped John's throat. He didn't even know how he did that, let alone why! "What...?"

"You're chirpin'. It's supposed to be a happy noise. Or one you make when you're feelin' good." The tinge of purple across Eridan's cheeks and the edges of his ear fins was unmistakably a blush. However, he did not remove his fingers from John's hair.

"Well, it is pretty nice, I guess, but--" Eridan scratched in that same spot again, forcing a chirp to cut John off in mid-sentence. "Hey, sto--" Chirp.

Eridan laughed. "Revenge is mine!"

When another chirp threatened to come out, John lunged again for Eridan's ticklish sides. "Never!" The troll glubbed helplessly against John's tickle assault, but his hand held firm against John's horns. Before he realized it, they had collapsed together on the floor of Eridan's hive in a tangle of glubbing, chirping, and laughing, neither one quite willing to let the other have the last word. Finally, John rolled away, clamping one hand over his mouth to stifle his giggling chirps.

"Haha, oh man, that's the most I've laughed in forever," he said.

"Then we need to do it again." Eridan stated with some finality. "I think it's good for you."


	8. Chapter 8

Of one thing Rose was certain: Karkat Vantas might very well drive her to drink. She'd hoped that their initial "discussion" at cultural exchange night had made the appropriate impression, but as she stalked toward the pair of hormonal teenaged troll-hybrids, she recognized the error of her assumptions. One of her Needlewands found its way to her hand, and with a flick of her wrist Karkat hung, flailing, above John. Another swish of the Needlewand stole the sound from his throat before it had a chance to form into what she was certain would be a colorful tapestry of expletives and vituperation. The last thing she wanted was for John to hear him and potentially be angry at her stern treatment of his kismesis-hopeful.

Dave, bless him, had already left her side to ensure John was in no danger from his wounds. That left her free to deal with Karkat. Again. She crooked her finger in a "come closer" gesture, and Karkat floated next to her as she left Dave and John to each other. Once out of earshot, she lowered him gently to the ground allowed sound back into his throat.

"... monumental grub-headed harpy witch!" he finished with gusto. "Why the ever-hating fuck do you feel the need to stick your meddling cartilage-nub into our business? It is the highest order of hoofbeast shit that you and Strider feel the urge to bulge-block me at every turn, and I guess I could understand it when we were still playing that idiotic abortion of a game, but I don't know if you got the memo-- oh, wait, that's right, no one fucking reads memos around here because you're all douchebags-- but we're supposed to be repopulating right now!" He paused to take a breath before launching back into his tirade. "You can't tell me that we don't have a good match! Everyone can see it, so just let us fucking run our course!"

Rose resisted the very strong urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. Dealing with Karkat felt very much like dealing with an overly excitable and petulant Dave, without the benefit of years of friendship and the bonds of ectobiological and dreamself siblinghood. "Karkat, no one has said anything about how strong your match with John may or may not be," she said, keeping her voice even, "nor is anyone arguing the necessity of reproduction here. My one, simple request is that you give John time and space before acting on your black feelings toward him. I had thought I made this abundantly clear, but I was evidently mistaken."

Karkat sneered. "You weren't mistaken, I'm just ignoring you. Your request is stupid, and I feel stupider for having even heard it."

Her estimation tipped from "excitable" squarely into "petulant." Hormonal teenaged boys would definitely be the death of her sobriety. "Karkat, I can appreciate your position as someone caught in the throes of adolescence being told to practice strict celibacy. However, I must insist that you keep your concupiscent advances toward John to an absolute minimum, for the sake of his mental well-being. Need I remind you that he has only recently been seen to exit his home of his own accord? I am auspisticing between you to make sure that he does not become overwhelmed by his feelings and have a mental break."

"For fuck's sake, Lalonde, that is the largest pile of milkbeast excrement that I have ever heard!" Karkat snapped. He bared his teeth and growled, but Rose ignored it. "How the fuck do you expect him to be comfortable in his own skin if he doesn't learn what it fucking means to be a troll? Keeping him away from me isn't going to teach him how to handle a kismesissitude properly. And then where is he going to be when he accidentally falls into black with someone because he didn't fucking know better, huh? Not everyone around here will tolerate his shit, and he could get really hurt. Did you think of that, you meddlesome she-devil? Because I'll bet you didn't!"

Quicker than Karkat could blink, Rose had the tip of a Needlewand pressed into the soft underside of his chin. It wasn't hard enough to hurt, but the barely perceptible widening of Karkat's eyes let her know he felt its presence. She let her eyes narrow into a half-lidded glare. "These are not unfamiliar concepts to me, Karkat. Believe me when I tell you that I have thought these things through. However, I am privy to more information than you, and I can assure you that my request is made with the knowledge that it is in John's best interests."

Karkat opened his mouth, and Rose did not wait to find out the nature of his continued protesting. She dropped the Needlewand from his throat, curled her other hand into a fist, and punched him squarely in the nose. "You will accept my judgement as your auspistice with John, and that is final."

"Augh, fuck, Lalonde! Jesus, all right, whatever, you crazy witch!" The troll boy's exclamations were muffled somewhat by the hands he brought up to cradle his nose. Candy red already dripped between his fingers. "Was that really necessary?"

Rose paused, tapping her chin thoughtfully with her wand. "If it has the desired effect of making you listen to my advice, then yes. Absolutely."

Karkat snarled at Rose, but didn't say anything further. Rose was pleased by her success at actually getting the troll boy to shut up. Reasonably secure in knowing that Karkat wasn't going to go pick another fight, she went back to her own hive. House. Oh dear, she'd been around too many trolls for too long. Some of their speech mannerisms were starting to rub off on her. Though, she supposed, that would only make sense considering that there were no real physical differences between humans and trolls anymore.

They really should start thinking of a name for their new species.

But that wasn't the most important thing right now. Once things had settled down and they weren't reliant on the alchemiter anymore, then they could worry about things like calenders and species names. And repopulation.

Rose flushed a faint purple at that thought. There were so many odd pairings, and all of them seemed to have the same genitalia, but... what use were things like breasts now? They all still had a lot to learn, even if some things were a bit daunting. But these were issues best to be sorted in her journal. She had more important things to concern herself with, like her appointment with Kanaya. Judging by the lights on in her own hive, her matesprit had taken the liberty of coming over.

She still found it peculiar how her heart would skip a beat when she realized Kanaya was waiting for her, even this long after they'd established their feelings. It was almost deliriously pleasant, and she often felt as though she could stay in Kanaya's presence for hours on end, doing nothing more than just sitting. It was a silly thought, of course, because there were other things they'd much rather do than just _sit_ there.

Rose opened up the door, greeted by a swath of black fabric being almost shoved into her face. "Rose, do you think the integrity of this fabric would hold up to prolonged exposure to the lake water? I am trying to make you a dress that will not weigh you down too much and also stay durable for a considerable length of time so as to facilitate the best use of our limited supply of materials."

Despite herself, Rose found her fingers testing the fabric that Kanaya presented. "I suppose it seems sturdy enough, but I admit to being unsure that now is really the proper time, dear." She gently pushed aside the fabric so she could pull its owner into a quick embrace. "I believe that our friends will be the death of my sanity."

Kanaya's brows knit together in a show of concern. "Would it be safe to assume that your duties as auspistice weigh heavily upon your shoulders?"

"Yes, Kanaya, I believe that's a reasonably safe assumption. I cannot seem to make Karkat realize how damaging his advances could be. Despite their mutual hatred of each other, I doubt that Karkat wants John to be permanently afraid of ever being in a relationship with him or anyone else." Rose sighed. "How did you manage your ashen relationships without losing your mind?"

Her matesprit tensed in her arms. "I think, perhaps, it may not be best to ask for my advice, Rose," she said at length, words even more clipped and precise than usual. "Without exception, my ashen relationships ended in the deaths of all parties involved."

"Ah. I'm sure this won't have to last too long, thankfully. It's fortunate for all parties involved that Karkat only needs to be kept away for a reasonably short period of time. I hope." She let her arms drop so that her hands rested on Kanaya's hips. "Admittedly, I have little experience with crises of one's sexuality, but I remain hopeful that John's romantic feelings will help him come to terms with it."

Kanaya smiled, resting her hands on top of Rose's arms. "I still cannot quite comprehend what you told me of your suspicions concerning John's preferences before changing, or how they correlate with his current predicament with hating the changes the game gave to all of us."

"As I may have mentioned previously," said Rose, "human reproduction was hardly compulsory, nor did it need to be given the population of our planet peaking around nearly seven billion before we played the game. It is my belief that John did not possess any drive to procreate. Or, as some would say, he was ase--" Rose found herself abruptly cut off by jade-green lips.

"I believe this is a good time to, as your ectosibling would say, shut you up." Kanaya smiled coyly, just a slight up-turn of the corners of her mouth, and it chased all other thoughts out of Rose's head. It was almost shameful how such a small thing could set flame to Rose's heart and arrest all rational thought processes. Of course, Kanaya's inviting scent hardly made matters better; she smelled deliciously of flower petals and silk with just a hint of clove that drove Rose to distraction.

Rocking forward onto the balls of her feet, Rose pressed her lips to Kanaya's without another word. One hand worked its way under Kanaya's shirt and pressed firmly into the space between her shoulder blades, while the other followed the curve of her hip down to rest on Kanaya's thigh.

"Oh, hey Rose, hey Kanaya!"

Rose's hands jerked away from her matesprit as she spun around to face the new speaker, startled. In her distraction, it had completely slipped her mind to close the door behind her once she saw Kanaya. Now, Feferi stood on her doorstep, hair damp, grinning widely. "I saw your door was open so I thought I'd come check on you!"

Kanaya seemed a little less than pleased, but not completely put out. Two ladies in two quadrants in the same room, why would she? Rose smiled a little at that thought and moved aside to make room for Feferi. "Please come in Feferi. I apologize if I worried you over my forgetfulness."

Feferi accepted the invitation with grace befitting her former station as imperial heir apparent, stepping over the threshold and catching both Rose and Kanaya up into a cheerful hug. She punctuated her greeting with a quick peck on each of their cheeks before stepping back and holding them both at arm's length. "You two are so sweet! I'm reeeelly sorry if I interrupted your moment! I just get a little worried about my fin-friends sometimes, you know?"

"Feferi, if this is an excuse to come see how Eridan is doing..." Kanaya started, frowning. At Feferi's blush, Kanaya's frown deepened, and Rose was forced to hide her amused smirk behind a polite cough. "We will have this discussion as many times as it takes, Feferi, but I wish you would hear me when I tell you to let that boy be."

The other sea dweller heaved a melodramatic sigh, her face falling in a fashion Rose might have found comedic if she were unaware of how very earnest Feferi was. "I can't help it! I was out for a swim and I was passing by his hive when I saw John just talking with Eridan at the dock! And your door was open so I was afraid something might be wrong." Her lower lip trembled slightly. "Please, don't be mad, Kanaya!"

"I am not mad," Kanaya said, laying a hand on her moirail's shoulder. "I just want to remind you that Eridan is no longer your responsibility. I understand that it may be habit for you to check up on him, but that road historically only leads to disaster. Rose is very capable of ensuring his health, and I am certain John would never hurt him besides." She pulled Feferi close and bent down until their foreheads touched. "Now, allow me to take care of you. Why don't you go visit Jade and discuss your mutual affection for tentacled creatures?"

The suggestion appeared to have the opposite of its desired effect when Feferi's lower lip trembled even more. "Oh, Kanaya, I don't know what to do about her!" A couple of tiny glubs slipped out, the precursors of tears. "I think I pity her a little bit, but whenever I try to talk to her about squiddles or horrorterrors, she gets reelly upset and just clams right up! And one time, she said she doesn't actually like tentacles at _all_!"

Kanaya gathered Feferi close, such that she was sandwiched between Rose and herself. "It's all right," she said, her voice low and soothing. The hand that was on Feferi's shoulder began stroking the back of her head. "Being flushed for someone who doesn't necessarily return your feelings is hard, but I promise that I understand."

Feferi let out a mournful glub before the tears flowed in earnest. Rose brought her arms up to embrace both the crying girl and her matesprit. In that moment, she knew without a doubt that her friends' amorous inclinations would be the end of her sanity, if not her dignity.

 

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Dave was already waiting for him when John got home after fighting with Karkat (again). It wasn't the most surprising thing to happen to him today, but he felt fine! In fact, he felt really great. Sore from the fight, yeah, but it was just a sprained ankle and some bruising. It would heal, same with all the other bruises and strains he sustained from their skirmishes over the past few days.

"Dude, you can't keep doing this to yourself. Gonna have to put my foot down and put a stop to this. Strifing with Vantas is hurting you something fierce, and if I gotta tie you up to keep from going and picking fights with him for the tenth goddamn time this week, I will fucking do it." Despite wearing his best poker face, John could read Dave's frustration as clearly as if he were walking around with a billboard.

John just rolled his eyes, trying not to look too exasperated. He'd tried to explain the thrill he got, how much more alive he felt, but Dave was just too stubborn to listen! Sure, he was probably a mess of bruises underneath his clothes, but he was just so much happier now. How could he make Dave see? He turned over half a dozen responses in his mind, discarding each in turn. Finally, he settled on, "I'm _fine_ , Dave. This is the best I've felt since--" He stopped just short of saying "since before we won," shying away from that particular elephant. "Well, since forever ago," he finished lamely.

His friend just stared at him, unimpressed. "This is not 'fine,'" he said. There was no hint of emotion to his voice, which was more telling to John than if he'd been yelling. "'Fine' is Sollux's tight ass, or Jade's cute little feet in thigh-highs, or Feferi deciding she doesn't need a swimsuit in the morning. This--" he jerked his chin in John's direction, ghost of a sneer on his lips, "-- is fucked up, bro."

John frowned, crossing his arms and staring right back at Dave's shaded face. "Not that long ago you wanted me out of the house more, now you're threatening to tie me up and keep me inside?"

Dave did snarl at that, closing the distance between them until they were nearly nose-to-nose. "Honesty time here, Egbert: what I want is for you to stop being a fucking moron and hurting yourself. This shit is not healthy, bro, and I'm not gonna just sit around and let you kill yourself by inches because you think it makes you more alive somehow!"

"Back off, Dave! I already told you, I feel _fine_!" John shoved his friend away from him, trying to regain some personal space and so he didn't have to breathe in that stupid, calming scent. He didn't want to calm down! It was totally unnecessary, and Dave's whole presence was ruining the post-fight high he had been riding on.

Being so used to Dave as a pacifying force in his life of late, it shocked him when the other boy tackled him to the ground. "What the--?" Dave's answering growl cut off any thoughts that may have been running through his head, leaving John startled and passive. Only when Dave flipped him onto his stomach and jerked his wrists together behind his back did he think to struggle. "What the fuck, Dave?!" he squawked, trying to squirm away. Unfortunately, his injuries (compounded over the past several days as they were) denied him the strength to be truly effective versus Dave's determination. In a matter of moments, he lay prostrate in front of his couch, bound hand and foot.

He heard Dave shift behind him. "I fucking told you: I will tie you up if that's what it takes to keep you from hurting yourself." Suddenly, the world pitched sideways as he was hefted over Dave's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Now, I am going to tuck you into bed and you are going to stay there like a good boy for the rest of the fucking night. I'll be back later to make sure you get food and a bath."

John tried to fight back, but there really wasn't anything he could do with his arms tied up behind his back. He resigned himself to glaring daggers at Dave's legs instead until his friend slung him down onto his bed, at which point he was able to start glaring daggers directly at Dave's face. "You're being a real tool right now, you know that? I'm fine! I don't need this, and I don't need you putting your dumb nose where it doesn't belong!"

His friend froze for a moment, almost as if time had just halted (and maybe it had, who knows?). In that moment, John felt his stomach drop in a way that was disconcertingly similar to the first time he'd flown using the windy thing, but more sinister. Fuck, what if Dave thought he meant that he didn't want Dave around at all? That wasn't something John wanted to happen! "Dave, I--"

"Shut it, John," and John knew that Dave was _really_ upset and concerned, because it was "John" and not "Egbert" or "bro" or "dude." What was he doing wrong? "Listen, when I get back we can have the world's longest, most bromantic feelings jam ever. In fact, scratch that, not 'we can,' 'we're gonna,' because fuck this is not cool. But I'm gonna give you some time to cool off between now and then so we can talk." He leaned over to tousle John's hair, digging his claws into the scalp just a little in reassurance. At least they were still friends for now.

Finally, Dave left the room, snatching his hand back from John's head and not-quite-slamming the door behind him. John heard his steps retreating heavily down the hall, followed by a loud bang of his front door definitely being slammed. Jeez, Dave must have been really upset to be making a scene like that, even aside from the fact that he'd gone so far as to tie John up. Not that there was anything for him _to_ be upset about, right? Fighting in a black courtship was perfectly normal! The most normal thing!

Right?

Oh jeez, just thinking of fighting with Karkat was making him twitchy. It was frustrating, and even worse when he couldn't even move to distract himself! He wiggled his fingers to flex the tendons in his wrists experimentally, but the binding was tight. Not so tight as to cut off circulation, but he had the feeling he might be there a while if he tried to work his way out of it. Jeez, since when did they teach you how to hog-tie your best bros in boy scouts? For that matter, since when was Dave a boy scout?

Maybe he could get Dave to show him how to tie Karkat up like this. It would certainly be a good way to minimize injury during their scuffles, and maybe then Karkat would sit still long enough for John to file down his stupid looking, nubby little horns. And once _that_ had been taken care of, there'd be nothing Karkat could do when John decided to lick up any of his blood!

Just thinking of that possibility made John much too hot. Usually he'd have something to distract himself with by the time he got to this point of his fantasies, so he didn't have to think of, well, _that_ , but it was just him, tied up in bed. Maybe if he could just change positions, he might have better luck with wiggling free... Getting onto his stomach made things a bit easier. But squirming around on his stomach also meant that his... _bone bulge_ was rubbing against the mattress.

Not a totally unpleasant feeling. Not at all dissimilar from when Karkat was grinding into him those few times Rose, Dave, and Gamzee couldn't get them apart fast enough. In fact, if he closed his eyes, it really wasn't that difficult to imagine that Karkat was there, because surely restraints could be a perfectly normal part of a black romance. If he cocked his hips _just so_ , and he didn't think about where he was at the moment, it really did feel like he could be grinding against his hate-boyfriend. Almost.

It was good enough to go off of, at least, so John kept grinding into the bed and imagining it was Karkat he pressed himself against. His most recent aches added a level of realism to the fantasy, letting him imagine that this was the natural conclusion to their earlier spat. His breath grew ragged as he worked himself awkwardly against his mattress, imagining Karkat straining against him with equal desperation because _god_ they had wanted this for just so long. Without realizing it, his mouth had started forming sounds that slipped out with each ragged breath, eventually resolving unmistakably in his own ears as "Karkat, oh god, Karkat..."

At least no one else was around to hear him say such maddeningly embarrassing things. John bit into his pillow in an attempt to both shut himself up and maybe, also imagine that he was biting into Karkat's shoulder.

A peculiar, slick tickling sensation just below where his belly button had once been snapped him out of the fantasy, causing him to throw himself back with a startled yelp. The back of his head cracked against the wall, one horn gouging the drywall near where his headboard would have been, if he hadn't gotten rid of it. Through the haze of pain and confusion, John stared down at his abdomen in dawning horror. Visibly working their way out of the waistband of his pants were the tendrils of his bulge. They writhed against the skin of his abdomen in their quest for body warmth, leaving a thin trail of pale blue fluid in their wake. His stomach lurched at the sight, and any vestige of rational thought left his brain because there was absolutely no way that those things were attached to him at all no sir nope no way no how--

When he felt something probing at the slit just behind his bulge (oh god oh fuck was that one of his _things_ oh fuck how many did he even _have_ did he ever count them oh fuck), John's dignity flew out the window and he shrieked. "DAVE!" But Dave had left, he wasn't coming back for a couple hours at least, and he was all alone to deal with these _things_ that shouldn't be a part of his body but they were

Instinctively, he tried to push himself away from them, mind not processing that they were, in fact, attached. With legs still bound together, the best he could manage was a few ineffectual rabbit-kicks that shoved his covers off the head of his bed and scooted him back until he huddled in the corner. Wide-eyed, he called for Dave again, not even caring that he was gone and had left him alone with this horrible abomination that was supposed to be his body and oh god what was he going to do?

All arousal had gone, replaced only with sheer terror. His bulge had receded, tentacles curling back up in his sheath, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from his pants. What if they came _back_? What if he closed his eyes and they were there again? He didn't even notice the blue tint to his vision. All he could do was watch, stomach clenching, and wait until Dave returned.

 

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Dave hadn't been completely sure what he'd expected to find when he returned to John's place. Well, that was a lie; he half-expected to find that his best bro had somehow slipped his bonds (it wasn't like Dave had ever been a boy scout) and left, or maybe at least crawled out of his bedroom in order to bitch Dave out as soon as he returned. But finding John curled up and sobbing in the corner was the last thing he'd expected.

"Holy shit John, what happened?" Dave was quick to pull the other boy into his arms and untie him. The desperate, clinging mess of Egbert that resulted was enough to make him feel sick. What had he done wrong? This had been to try and calm John down, not make him worse!

So not only was he failing at keeping John from hurting himself, now he was making shit worse. Good fucking going, Strider. He knew he would be awarded the gold medal at the combination Shittiest Moirail and Insufferable Douchebag Olympics, followed closely by, oh, _no one_ , because who the fuck reduces their moirail to a gibbering mess?

It took a few moments of John sobbing into his shirt before Dave realized that he was trying to talk. In between sobs, he'd squirmed around in Dave's arms and began gesturing vaguely at his pants. That narrowed it down a little bit, but damn if that didn't still leave a _lot_ of options to go with. "Shh, it's okay, bro, just calm down so we can talk." He pulled John the rest of the way into his lap and started stroking his hair. "Just keep breathin', bro."

The boy in his arms took in several gulping, shuddering breaths before anything resembling words started coming out of his mouth. They tumbled out in fits and starts, and Dave had to work to piece them into a coherent thought, but the picture was pretty clear. Dave had left John alone with his worst enemy: his own body. Like a gigantic, insensitive fuck-wit. Jesus fuck, what had he been thinking? _Had_ he even been thinking?

His arms tightened around John almost instinctively. "Fuck, man, I am so fucking sorry. I promised you a feelings jam, so let's fucking have it right now."

John nodded a little and tried to breathe as deep as he could. It was shuddering and halting, but eventually it did even out a little bit. "Don't leave me like that again? Please?"

God, he was the world's biggest fuck up, wasn't he? But John didn't need to hear his problems right now - he needed support. "I ever do something that stupid again and you have full permission to kick me in the nads. I'm guessing we still have those, at least..."

"WHAT?" Oh shit oh fuck that was the wrong fucking thing to say, wasn't it? Dave tried not to panic in turn as he ran through his options. Obviously, maintaining his chill was not what John needed, but that left him precious few tools at his disposal. In fact, as much as it pained him, that really only left one avenue (if such a barely trod path could be called an "avenue").

With a frantic best bro on the verge of tears in his arms, he grasped the remaining option with both hands, dignity be damned. "John, calm your tits, _please_. I-- fuck, there's no easy way to say this, so I'm just gonna say it: I don't want you to fucking die. You're on a road where it's looking like you're trying to kill yourself in your fights with Vantas, and I'd probably kill _myself_ if that happened." Heartbreak, yeah, because John's his best bro, but also because god what kind of fuckup moirail can't even keep the other half of the pair from offing themselves? Not one that's worthy of a fucking life, that's what.

When John pulled away, Dave felt his heart cracking already. Fuck, had that been wrong, too? But John only stared at him with those fucking gigantic doe eyes that could melt cold hard steel. "What are you talking about, Dave?" he asked, expression confused rather than horrified. "When I'm fighting with Karkat, that's when I feel _alive_! I'm not trying to kill myself at all! I just... I feel better when we're fighting. Everything else feels so dull, but I can actually, yanno, feel stuff when we fight!"

"It's called pain, Egbert, and that's a sign you need to back the fuck away from what you're doing." Still, he felt a tiny bit of relief; things were bad, but at least John wasn't actually suicidal. Just monumentally stupid. "You've gotta find a better hobby. Seriously. Your body can't keep up with the rate you keep piling injuries on top of it." He ruffled John's hair. "If you really want pain, go play Scrabble with Lalonde and Maryam."

At least John laughed at that. It meant Dave was doing _something_ right, at least off and on, and that made him feel marginally better. "Look, for your sake and mine, can you at least space out your fights a bit? You gotta give yourself a chance to heal up. Bro knew when to back off when I took a beating, even if I went asking for more the same goddamn day. Vantas isn't like that. He doesn't get the hint, awright?"

Hesitantly, John nodded, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of one hand like a tired little kid. "Okay. I can do that." Losing his coolkid dignity had been worth it to hear those words out of Egbert's mouth. But that was for feelings jam-time only. And honestly, if his cool was already lost, then he may as well go all the way here.

"Dude, I love you. You really are my best bro, Egbert. We're like family, and I'm not gonna let anything happen to you, got it?" Dave pulled John back in for a kiss on the forehead. This was ridiculously sappy, and totally the furthest thing from cool and god he couldn't even fall back on saying it was ironic, because it wasn't. But dammit if seeing the smile on John's face didn't make him feel giddy and warm and perfectly content with their pale little bromance. He was pretty sure that if Nepeta saw them, she'd be drawing stupid pink diamonds everywhere.

Not that it mattered. The only thing that mattered was that John was alive and safe and with him and planned to stay that way.

 


	9. Chapter 9

John was sick and tired of being blocked off from one of his best pals. Vriska was his friend, and at one point it even seemed like she might be his girlfriend! But Terezi was always hanging around her. He knew it was because his friend _was_ dangerous, and Terezi was the best choice for keeping her in line, but something about the formerly-blind girl always rubbed him the wrong way.

It was entirely frustrating! Even above and beyond her killing him in an alternate timeline (almost killing him in his own!), she seemed to love bothering him. Now that his blood was blue, she'd taken to calling him "BLU3B3RRY BR34TH" whenever she trolled him, and when he got annoyed, she'd turn around and try to blame _him_ for having blue blood in the first place!

Today, though, he wanted to actually do something about her. Maybe they could just talk things out (yeah right, like that had worked _so_ well with Karkat), or at least find some way where he could spend some time with Vriska that didn't involve being in constant pestering range of a raving mad, cackling blind girl. Maybe if he told Vriska he wanted to try role-playing with her alone... but that might lead to shenanigans he didn't want to deal with. Ugh, why was trying to be with his friends so hard?

There was just no avoiding it: he would have to face Terezi so he could get his friend back.

By mid-afternoon, after psyching himself up all day, John had finally gotten his feet to walk to Vriska's hive. Terezi was at the door, licking up some chalk marks that she'd drawn. Ew, disgusting. One more reason to try and avoid her - he didn't want her slobbering all over him. "Why are you drawing on Vriska's door?" Okay, he couldn't quite keep the irritation out of his voice. But really, how rude! Doing that sort of thing to her own house was one thing, but drawing on another person's house just to lick up the pictures? Terezi just... didn't have any respect at all for other people's stuff, did she?

"Are you sure you're not the blind one, Blueberry Breath?" Terezi snickered, not even turning away from her work. "It's a map!"

A map. "If I remember right, the last map you drew up was pretty shitty."

The troll girl just cackled. "I gave you an alternative, didn't I?"

John crossed his arms and scowled. "You made a doomed timeline where I died. That's kind of a pretty big deal! Especially since that meant doomed-Jade died, too, and then doomed-Dave was alone with doomed-Rose for four months until he came back to make sure I didn't listen to your terrible advice!"

"Aww, I miss Orange Creamsicle." She dropped her current piece of chalk back into the box and selected another. "I always regret not getting to have a creamsicle-cherry sandwich. Now we're just stuck with a poor coolkid who doesn't taste like cherries anymore and gross blueberries."

Oh. John could work with this. Dave had told him about regaining all the memories of his doomed timeline counterparts. Supposedly, Aradia had the same thing happen with her, so he guessed it was something to do with the Time players specifically. "You know, Davesprite never liked you. He blamed you for that time he had to spend with Rose taking apart the game so he could fix other peoples' messes, and you know what? He was totally right! It _was_ your fault."

Terezi finally turned to face him, leaning on her cane. He couldn't see her eyes behind her cats-eye red shades, but she flashed a smile that was mostly shark's-teeth. "No, Blueberry Breath, it was your fault for thinking it would be a good idea to follow a map drawn for you by a blind girl. How dumb _are_ you?" The smile twisted to a sneer in the blink of an eye. "Don't blame me for the holes in your think-pan. Do you usually do whatever girls on the Internet tell you to?"

John fought the flush of anger that threatened to rise to his cheeks, stubbornly refusing to let Terezi get the better of him. "Why are you drawing a map on Vriska's house-- I mean, hive? Where is she?" he asked. He was not going to let her bully him into forgetting why he'd come, or that _she_ was the one doing weird things to someone else's property!

"Pff, you do have holes in your think-pan, don't you? I'm drawing the map of our surrounding area, Blueberry Breath!" She snorted, and he got the impression she was rolling her eyes at him behind her red shades. "That's what Vriska and Aradia, you know, the _useful god-tiers_ , are doing right now with Sollux. They're exploring and reporting back to _me_ so I can keep up our map."

Useful god-tiers...? Oh. John hadn't been very helpful ever since the start, had he? Hiding away and feeling sorry for himself, instead of trying to do something important - or at least trying to get to know everyone he was going to be living with, well, for the rest of his life. But there was still time to change that! They'd only been here for a couple months (according to Rose and her diary, at least), there was still plenty of time for him to make himself useful. "All right. Where do you need me to work?"

Terezi rocked back on her heels, cackling again. "You? Help? You're joking, right?"

John frowned, wishing that he could get away with punching Terezi in the face like he could with Karkat. But he was more of a gentleman than that - gentlemen didn't go around punching girls. It was impolite. "I'm still god-tier, and I _was_ a friendleader before we got here. I think if I were so useless, we never would've made it here in the first place."

The sharky grin faded from Terezi's face, replaced by something tight-lipped that made John feel like she was trying to stare into his soul. "All right, Mister Blueberries, I'll bite. You're too late to be useful today, but if you're serious, you meet us here tomorrow morning bright and early." She didn't wait for him to respond before turning her back to him and resuming what she'd been doing before he'd arrived.

Since the conversation was so obviously over now, John left to go find Dave. His best bro had some serious ass to kiss for not saying anything about this scouting mission to him sooner. Especially if Sollux was involved! John thought for a moment; this time of day, there really was only one place he'd be. Unless he was slacking off, but that risked Dave getting bitched out by Karkat without Tavros there to try and diffuse the situation.

The pottery barn had a whole stack of stuff waiting to be baked in the ovens, and Aradia seemed to think it would be good for Dave to learn how to control his new psychic-fiery powers (pyrokinesis, according to the trolls) by being the community furnace. It seemed awfully silly to start making pottery, but Rose had insisted it was important. "Dave! You here?"

A strawberry blond head (with dark red streaks, no less!) poked out from behind a stack of drying pots. "Yo, dude. What brings you to the land of mud and fire?"

"Hey, are you busy?" John asked, making his way toward Dave while avoiding knocking over any of the pottery.

Dave shook his head, pulling a towel from his sylladex and wiping his face with it. "Nah, I'm between batches right now, and I could use a break. 'Sup?" He re-captchalogued the towel and vaulted over the stack of pots he'd been working on. He had obviously been working for a while, having stripped himself to the waist and gotten covered in the muddy clay they were using to make the pottery.

Unable to help himself, John started laughing at the sight. "What the hell have you been doing, dude? What does getting covered in mud have to do with your fiery thing?" He didn't need to see his bro's eyes to know that they were being rolled in his direction.

"Dude, it's Pottery 101 here," Dave said. "You make shitty pots out of some special mud, let 'em dry, and then bake 'em with the fires of Hades to turn them magically into ceramics. Which can then magically be filled with nasty slurry that will then magically be turned into slightly less nasty booze." He spread his hands in front of him in an exaggerated shrug. "It's the basic cycle of life, Egbert. I don't know how you didn't learn that in preschool."

Snorting, John reached out and gently flicked the very tip his friend's ear. "I don't buy for a minute that you knew any of that stuff before Aradia told you to start doing this."

Dave growled halfheartedly, rubbing his ear. "It's not like you know any better, bro. You are even more woefully unschooled in the ways of pottery than I am. But seriously, what'd you need to talk to me about?"

"Well, why haven't you _told_ me about the mapping project going on? You know I can fly, I'm tired of feeling like I'm just sitting around inside and being useless all day!" Because that's exactly what he had been doing for the most part, and they were both fully aware of that.

The question hung in the air for a moment, Dave not bothering to hide the fact that he was choosing his words carefully. "All right, honesty time: I don't want you hurting yourself, Egbert. I can finally trust you to feed yourself most of the time, which is something, but shit... You still go out and get your face rearranged on a regular basis, and I don't want you biting off any more than you can chew."

John frowned, crossing his arms and glaring at his best friend. "Keeping me out of the loop isn't going to do that, bro. Terezi's convinced I'm useless, Karkat's taking over everything and it's going to wear him out if he's the only one shouldering all this responsibility! Someone has to step up and help out, and it's starting to look like I'm the only one around here with the mangrit to do it!"

"Dude, you're not doing anything to prove me wrong," said Dave, crossing his arms over his chest. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd try to jump all over that shit, and as soon as you find out about it that's exactly what you do. Come back when you can keep your face from being pulped for longer than two days and we can talk."

For the first time ever, John felt the hot flash of anger in the pit of his stomach while his moirail stood in front of him. Blue rushed to his cheeks as his face flushed in response to the stab of emotion Dave's words brought on. "I can't believe I'm hearing this! I am totally not useless or helpless or hopeless and I can do this! And if you don't believe me, then I'm just going to prove it to Terezi, to Karkat, and to you!" Without thinking, John pointed his finger in Dave's direction, a gust of wind answering to blow his best friend over.

"Jesus fuck, Egbert, what was that for?" Dave readjusted his shades and looked up at John.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, until John's brain finally caught up with what had just happened. He brought both hands up to his mouth, eyes wide. "Oh shit, I'm sorry, dude!" The words started tumbling out, too fast for John to stop them if he'd even wanted to. "I didn't mean to do that, it just sort of happened! I just... I have to prove myself! If I don't do this, no one will ever respect me or think I can do anything. And it's not true!" He stepped forward a bit and held out his hand to help Dave stand up. "I'm really sorry. But I have to do the right thing here, even if it means going against what you think is best for me."

John fled the pottery barn, summoning the wind to carry him away and leaving his best friend alone.


	10. Chapter 10

The feel of wind swirling around him, holding him aloft and taking him wherever he wished hadn't changed. When he glanced down and saw the pottery barn as a little speck in the clearing below him, John let out an exhilarated whoop. A tightness in his chest he hadn't realized was there loosened; there was something that winning hadn't taken from him. He still had the freedom of the skies and the breeze took him wherever he wanted. Flying was almost like a homecoming--the weather wouldn't treat him any differently just because he'd changed.

All right, so maybe the other fliers in their group had had a chance to look around, but John hadn't! He looked around for a few landmarks to orient himself, then set off towards the west. At least, they were calling it west! The sun set in that direction at any rate, he knew that much. It was also the direction of what appeared to be a mountain range that rose up sharp and jagged in the distance. He was no space hero, with impeccable sense of distance, but it looked like it wouldn't take him long to fly over them. Just for a little peek!

He reached out with his mind and found a swift current of air pointed in the general west-ish direction. Sure, he could just _tell_ the wind to take him over there, but it was so much more fun to just let the wind do its thing and go along for the ride! Even though his god-tier abilities rendered it completely unnecessary, he dog-paddled toward the current. Its smell washed over him once he reached it, cool and damp. It probably passed over the lake where Eridan lived at some point before it made its way toward the mountains.

With the wind carrying him, John allowed himself to just lay back and stare up. There weren't a lot of clouds anywhere in sight, so he got a really nice view of the bluish-violet sky. It was starting to turn more reddish in the west, so he probably didn't have more than an hour or so to explore before he should head back. He didn't want to get lost in the dark after all! He rolled over to watch the landscape pass by, the ground mostly covered by trees in varying shades of green (though he noticed a few that were different colors scattered here and there). He flew over at least one stream that cut a path through the greenery, flowing back down toward their encampment, likely into their lake.

Before long, the relative flatness gave way to rolling foothills that rose, oddly treeless, from the woods. He kind of wondered why it did that so suddenly, and flew down for a closer look. Maybe he could ask Dave or Aradia about it later! It looked pretty ordinary except for the lack of major plant life other than grass, but it was still pretty fascinating since everything looked pretty uniform up till this point. Man, if only he hadn't slept through the geology parts of his science class!

John took another glance at the sky, and decided he could go a little bit further towards the mountain range before returning. Just as he was starting to regain altitude, though, he felt something struggling against the breeze. He let it carry him closer, and saw a familiar set of blue wings. "Vriska!"

His friend turned, the air whipping her hair about. "John!" she called, waving one hand wildly in greeting. "What are _you_ doing here? I haven't seen you in aaaaaaaages, and now you're just flying around like you own the skies!"

John laughed and flew over to his friend, pulling her about fifty feet to (her!) left and out of the breeze she was trying to fly against. "There! Now you won't be fighting the wind!"

She flipped her hair over one shoulder in an almost derisive gesture, but the grin on her face completely ruined it. "You breath people and your windy things. I'd like to see you try to fly with just your wits and a pair of wings!" She poked him in the ribs. "You're avoiding my question, though! What're you doing allllllll the way up here? I thought Mister Failrail was trying to keep you inside all to himself."

Failrail? Was she talking about Dave? But that didn't make any sense! Dave was just doing what he thought was best. Sure, they needed to work a few things out but John would never call him a failure! "Hey, be nicer about Dave! He's doing the best he can. I think he's doing pretty good considering how bad I was when we first got here!" Sure, he still wasn't entirely comfortable with his own body, but he was functional and trying to be an asset to the group again! That was more important.

Vriska shrugged. "That's not what I've been hearing, and you've been too scarce to set me straight!"

"Wait, what?" John blinked, eyes widening in confusion. "What do you mean, that's not what you heard?"

"Wellllllll, I was talking to Equius, who heard from Aradia, who was talking to _Sollux_ about how Strider was beating himself up over being the, and I quote, 'worst moirail to be shat out between three different universes and all of paradox space.'" She rolled her eyes. "Sounds pretty 'failrail' to me! But if you say he's good, I've got no choice but to believe you."

John couldn't believe what he was hearing! Why didn't Dave just _tell_ him that? Wasn't that what moirails were supposed to do? He thought... Well obviously Dave wasn't the failure here! John had been so wrapped up in his own problems he couldn't even tell when something was eating at his best bro! Which really meant that he should be heading back to apologize for running off on his moirail earlier. "Oh, jeez, I've got to get back! It was nice talking to you!"

He summoned up a gust of wind to carry him back to their settlement, but a sudden weight on his ankle caused him to loop-the-loop until his face was just a handspan from Vriska's. "Oh no you don't!" she said, laughing. "You're not gonna abscond _that_ easily! I'll fly back to your hive with you, but you don't get to leave without me!" To emphasize her point, she flicked John's nose.

"Hey! What was that for?" It hadn't hurt, but he rubbed it indignantly out of habit.

"Joooooooohn, you aren't listening!" This time, she butted her forehead against his with enough force to send him drifting away, but not enough to hurt. "I haven't seen you practically since we won, and now you're absconding on me! You deserve all of the punishment, but I'm in a good mood so I'm just letting you off lightly." She tugged on his ankle, pulling him along through the air as she flew. "We're going to take a little detour by my hive. I've got something I've been wanting to show you foreeeeeeeever!"

John pulled his leg out of Vriska's grasp as he righted himself by her side. He recalled his conversation with Terezi and didn't particularly care to run into her again before morning. "What is it? Can't you just bring whatever it is by my house?"

"Oh, come on, John!" Vriska said, rolling her eyes again. "It's a surprise I've been working on, and it just won't be the same if you don't come back to my hive! It'll take two minutes, then we can go back to your place and you can do whatever you want with your not-Failrail if that's what you reeeeeeeeally want to do." She glanced at him, winking. "But I don't think you'll want to!"

John was intrigued by the possibility of a surprise, so he flew around to stop Vriska. "Whyyyyyyyy? Look, I even counted that out for eight Y's!"

The troll girl hooked an arm around his neck and pulled him in for a fierce noogie. Despite himself, John chirped and flailed, trying to twist out of her grasp. "H-hey! No fair!" He tried to push her arm over his head, but the lack of solid anything to brace himself against meant that he only succeeded in sending them both spinning backwards. "Vriska, noooooooo!"

Laughing, his friend flicked his nose again. "Oh my god, you _chirp_! That is the cutest thing I've heard since I first saw your windsock hoodie."

"You can't hear a hoodie, Vriska!" he protested, still struggling. She merely laughed, digging her knuckles into his scalp again and eliciting another round of chirruping.

"How do _you_ know? Some trolls can taste colors, maybe _I_ can hear hoodies!"

John groaned, summoning a little gust of air to separate them. "Don't be ridiculous. Now why don't you show me what this surprise is, I can be suitably excited, and then I can go bother Dave and try to cheer him up."

She sighed. "Fiiiiiiiine, I'll show you the surprise, you can be excited, and if you _reeeeeeeeally want to_ you can go back to your silly hotblooded moirail." She turned and grabbed his hand in hers with a wink. "But I don't think you'll want to! Come on, slowpoke!" With no further warning, Vriska's wings fluttered until they blurred with motion, and she started dragging John back the way he'd come.

The flight back to Vriska's hive went quickly, mostly because she seemed determined to get back as fast as she could. From a distance, John could tell that Terezi's crazy wall-cartography had grown, and it actually matched the terrain he'd observed pretty well. When the formerly-blind troll raised her cane in greeting, Vriska only paused long enough to shout, "Just a minute, Terezi!" before pulling John into her hive through an open skylight.

John still vaguely recalled the memories of Vriska's old hive from his doomed self's time in the dream bubbles. The inside of her new hive was a _lot_ different from the dark, dramatic castle he remembered from before. It was wide open, spacious area with almost no walls between any of the rooms. John used a vaguely similar design plan for his own house (except for his bedroom and bathroom, of course!) so he didn't feel like he was being trapped inside.

If only he'd thought to put in huge skylights, though! Those would've been nice. Though maybe if he asked Equius nicely enough, he could get the "strong" troll to help him make modifications...

His thoughts trailed off when Vriska unceremoniously pulled his shirt up over his head. "Whoa! What the--?!"

"You can't peek!" she said. "And I don't trust you to keep your hands over your eyes. You'll totally peek through your fingers because this is just that good!"

"Vriskaaaa! I promise I won't peek! This is stupid!" He heard her rummage around for a few moments, then nothing. "Come on, let me pull my shirt back down, this is uncomfortable."

She snorted. "Fiiiiiiiine, you big wriggler, you can look now. Jeez!"

John wiggled around in his shirt, pulling it back into place and miraculously not knocking his glasses off his face in the process. What greeted him when he did left him gobsmacked, slack-jawed, and a couple of other words he couldn't even think of.

Spread out in Vriska's hands like playing cards were DVD cases. _Deep Impact_ , _Mac and Me_ , _National Treasure_ (one _and_ two in a 4-disc special edition), _The Wicker Man_ , _City of Angels_ , _Little Monsters_ , and _Armageddon_ all waggled enticingly at him in Vriska's grasp like the best hand of cards _ever_. Most of his collection had gotten trashed by imps in the Medium, but here were some of his favorites somehow in pristine condition right in front of his nose!

When words finally started actually coming out of his mouth, he didn't bother to hide his excitement. "Oh my _god_ , Vriska, you are the best friend of all best friends! I thought I lost these! How'd you find them? Oh my god, you're the best!" He ducked under her outstretched hands and wrapped his arms tightly around her middle, delivering what he thought was probably the fiercest (non-bromantic) hug in the history of ever. "This is so awesome! We _have_ to start watching these together! But how'd you find them?"

If they had been chatting over Pesterchum, John was pretty sure that her responding laughter would have been peppered with 8's and eight-eyed smileys. "Weeeeeeeell, a girl doesn't _usually_ reveal her secrets, but since you've acknowledged that I am the _best_ at friendship, I'll tell you!" She shifted the DVDs to one hand, freeing her other to pat John on the head between his horns. "You know how that neeeeeeeerd, Sollux, has been using that program to go through every possible captcha code and pull out the ones that are useful? Well, I just used some of my vast amounts of charm to make him find the codes for these!"

At the words "vast amounts of charm," John started laughing and hugged Vriska tighter. "Why do I think it was more like you just started poking Sollux's face until he gave them to you so you'd let him work?"

"No way, John, I am totally charming!" Vriska said, but she started laughing again, too.

John waited until they both calmed down to pull away. "Hey, Vriska, can I borrow _Little Monsters_ to go cheer up Dave? I promise I'll bring it back when I'm done!"

The look on Vriska's face could've curdled milk, if there had been any around. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips tightened into a thin, blue line. Before John could say anything more, she thrust the DVD into his hands with enough force to knock him down. "Fine! Go on, take it! I hope he enjoys it with his inferior intellect and appreciation for fine cinema!"

"Vriska?" John clutched the movie to his chest shakily as he stood. She turned away, almost whipping him in the face with her hair, and threw the other DVDs onto her desk. "What's wrong?"

" _Nothing!_ " Her outburst was accompanied by the stomp of a red-booted foot. "Go on, go be the best at moiraillegiance with your hotblooded 'bro!' Go!"

John wasn't sure what he'd done to warrant such an extreme outburst from his friend, but he had the uneasy feeling that he'd really, really hurt her feelings. When he walked out the front door, he saw Terezi there. Crazy as she was, Vriska still listened to her! Maybe he still had a chance to patch things up.

"Oh my gosh, Terezi, please believe me. I didn't mean to upset your friend, I don't even know what I did!" There was a light blue haze obscuring his vision, and John wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. How could he have been so stupid? He was just trying to think of his bro, he'd thought Vriska understood that.

"What are you going on about, Blueberry Breath?" Terezi demanded, hands going to her hips as she looked him over.

"I asked Vriska if I could borrow a movie to go cheer up Dave, and she got upset! I swear that's all I did, I just don't know why she's so mad about it!" He stepped away a little. "I... I think I need to go talk to Dave. Please Terezi, you've got to believe me..."

Through her red cats-eye lenses, John could see the troll girl roll her eyes. "Don't worry, I can taste your honesty from here, and it's kind of squishy. Like berries that are overripe. Yuck. Fine, if it comes up, I'll tell Vriska you didn't know you'd fuck up so hard when you asked her for the movie, all right?" She made a "shoo" motion with her hands. "Now go talk to the coolkid and I'll see you bright and early tomorrow. If you aren't too much of a wriggler, that is."


	11. Chapter 11

After the events of the afternoon, Dave had been prepared to conscript Sollux and hunt John down if he had to. He hadn't expected to open his front door that evening and see John standing there looking winded (no pun intended) with a determined look on his face and a DVD in one hand. "Hey dude, sup?"

His bro didn't wait for an invitation, instead stepping through the open door and grabbing Dave's arm. "You. Me. Feelings jam. Now." He really wasn't up for listening through John's issues right now, but like hell he was going to abandon the guy. Dave wasn't going to let himself continue to be accused of failing at his duties as a moirail.

John made a bee-line for the futon, tugging Dave along behind him. "All right, sit down so we can talk." There was an edge to John's voice that he hadn't heard since before they'd claimed their prize, a glimmer of steel that he'd used to drag their sorry asses through to the end. Shit, this must be serious.

Dave flopped onto his futon (which still didn't smell quite like the one he'd shared with Bro, but it was close). "I'm all ears, Egbert."

John smacked Dave in the back of the head. "No, stupid. I think _you_ need to be the one spilling your guts for a change! So start talking or I'm going to put you in a headlock until you do!"

"Fuck, jeez, watch your mangrit, bro. You trying to scramble my brains?" He rubbed the back of his head, though the sting had mostly gone. What the fuck did John want him to say? It wasn't like _he_ was having a body-related crisis with a side of self-destructive impulses. Instead he just half-heartedly glared at his moirail from behind his shades.

"I warned you!" said John, pushing his sleeves up over his elbows. Before Dave could react (which meant John was getting damn fast), he found himself in a headlock with John's knuckles digging into his scalp between his horns. "Come on, Dave! You can't keep your feelings bottled up forever!"

"Jesus fuck, Egbert, lay off!" Dave tried to squirm away, but the noogies continued no matter what he did.

"I will as soon as you start telling me why you think you're a failrail."

Oh shit, oh fuck. How did that get around to John? The kid practically never talked to anyone besides him! "Dunno what you're talking about, Egbert."

Suddenly, John's hand left his hair, and Dave found himself nose to nose with his bro. Even with his shades firmly in place, he had a hard time meeting John's blue eyes. "Dude, why would you try to lie to me about this? We're supposed to be moirails. Wait, no, even more than that, we're best bros! That's a two-way street, Dave. I know I've been kind of sucky at the supportive friend thing, but that's changing right now!"

Dave didn't need support. He was stronger than that, he needed to be the reliable one for everyone else - that's what he was raised to be. "I'm fine, John. Just trust me on this, okay?"

John shook his head. "Nope, sorry. I got it on good authority that you've been beating yourself up over being my failrail, and that made me realize that _I'm_ the one being the failrail here. So I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on in that bonehead of yours."

"I have not been beating myself up over jack shit, dude. I've got too much shit going on, I can't afford to do that."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about, Dave! You don't have to struggle with stuff by yourself. That's what bros are for, to help each other out." The earnest look on John's face was almost painful. Dave turned away, taking a deep, steadying breath. His nostrils filled with the smell of rain, the kind that fell after weeks of blistering heat and knocked about thirty degrees off the temperature, especially in the fall. It put him in mind of lazy days spent sprawled on his bed with the window open to let the cool air in.

Oh fuck, so _that_ was what it must be like to be on the receiving end of moirail mojo. One steadying breath turned into two, then three. Jesus, John smelled great. Dave felt a surge of warm fondness in his chest despite himself. Without consulting his brain, his mouth formed a slow smile, and he found himself chuckling. Christ on a unicycle, historians would have to invent whole new lexicons to describe the depth of bromantic emotion Dave felt at that moment.

Words started spilling out before his brain could even catch up with what was going on, but Christ, that smell was making him do shit. Dave would swear on his grave that was what happened. "Dude, if I don't stay strong for you, for Sol, for Harley and Lalonde and fuck even Vantas, then shit's just gonna fall apart. I won't let myself be a fucking laughingstock over my fuckups. I can't let anyone even _know_ about my fuckups."

Suddenly, John's arms were around him, and they were sitting in a pile of tangled limbs on the futon. "Oh, Dave, you aren't a fuckup. You're actually like the exact opposite of a fuckup. But you can't be strong for everybody all the time, it's just not good for you, and it's totally impossible anyway. That's why we all need to share responsibilities. That's why you need to talk to me some, too."

Not sure when he'd shifted so he could manage it, Dave pressed his nose into John's neck. The soothing, heady aroma of thunderheads and John was so much stronger closer to the skin, so much better. It made him feel giddy and dizzy and wonderful and serene. Shit, was this how John felt when he flew? Maybe it was. Maybe that's why he felt the need to go flying when he was upset.

He should be embarrassed to huff his best friend like bottle of glue, but it was just so relaxing. A distant part of his brain knew it was just the biological imperatives tied to moirallegiance, but the rest of him just did not care. He was floating on a fluffy white cloud of ultimate chill. He could say anything, it would be cool. John knew that.

"I gotta keep trying, bro. He'd be disappointed with me if I didn't. I know I can never be as good as he was, but if I don't at least _try_ then I've failed him. Failed his memory, I mean."

Dave felt John's chest rise and fall underneath him as he heaved a sigh. "Dude, you're not a failure, and you haven't failed anyone's memory. Remember? We made that game our bitch! It totally went crying home to its mommy and daddy when we were done owning it. Your bro would be proud of you, I know it!"

"You don't even know him, dude, how can you be so sure?"

John's breath tickled against his ear. "Because I'm proud of you."


	12. Book 2: Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so starts Book 2 of Looking Glass. Yeah, you heard us right. Book 2. We're getting close to the halfway mark, and things are a-changing.

"This heat is fuckin' ridiculous. I can't sea how your moirail can stand it." It was weird to be in the underwater portion of Eridan's hive, but it was so much cooler in there than at his own house. Walking around in waist-deep water was certainly helping, too.

"It's just where he grew up. I grew up somewhere a lot more temperate, so I don't like it much either." John couldn't help but grin as he watched Eridan completely submerge himself in the few feet of water left on this level. He could see the gray form sliding unworried just below the surface and couldn't resist such a golden opportunity. As soon as Eridan drifted within arm's reach, John plunged his hands into the water and went straight for the ticklish spots he knew rested just above his gills.

The peaceful surface of the water was broken by the sudden flailing of limbs below. A high-pitched glubbing sound broke the surface, too, carried by large air bubbles. Eridan pushed himself up, trying to grab at John's horns and failing miserably. "Fuckin' cheat." There was a bit of warmth in the way he said it, though, that sent pleasantly warm feelings through John's body.

And then that warmth reminded him of just how _hot_ it was. He and Tavros were doing a good job at keeping a relative breeze going, but that didn't stop the fact that they'd had a two-and-a-half month long draught. Even the lake's water level had gone down dramatically, and the further away from their precious source of water they went, the more they could see the ground drying and cracking at the surface.

"Oh my god, does anyone have any idea when this heat is going to just break already?" John complained and sunk into the water up to his chin.

Eridan perched on a table next to him, hair pressed flat against his skull by the weight of the water running out of it. Somehow, it never stopped being fascinating to John how much water troll hair follicles retained, but Eridan didn't seem to notice John staring. Instead, he just shrugged. "Rose told me that Sol's been workin' on weather models, an' his best guess is a perigee at _least_. Said somefin about a dry season onna spaghetti or whatever."

"Pff, you mean Serengeti?" John couldn't help the chuckle, though he tried to stifle it. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that Alternia didn't have much in the way of seasons or climates, huh?"

Eridan shook his head, pulling his glasses off his face and shaking the excess water from them. "Not reely. We had Dark season an' Dim season. All a this weather fluctuatin' irritates my gills."

"Aww, poor baby! Precious little Eridan has seasonal allergies!" The idea struck him as absurd and a little hilarious. Of course, it made sense when he thought about it: humans were definitely subject to such things, and trolls might even have been, too, if they'd had seasons to trigger them. "Don't worry, it's pretty normal," he continued when he caught Eridan's sulky glare. "My dad had the worst ragweed allergy ever! And I'm pretty sure peanuts are still a big no-no, if they even still exist. Not that that's seasonal, but still."

"What the hell is a peanut?" Eridan still glared at him, but John could see his resolve to be upset slipping. "Don't wanna accidentally have some lyin' around when you come over. Or whatever. Not that I care." The glare had changed completely into something between a pout and a scowl, an expression John had come to recognize as one Eridan wore when he was trying desperately not to say something.

John let it slide, though, choosing instead to answer his question. "It's a kind of plant from Earth called a legume. It comes in this weird little pod-thing, and people used to use it for a lot of stuff like roasting them to eat or grinding them up to make a sandwich topping. But my dad played a prank on me once using them and I kind of almost died. He didn't know I was allergic before, or he never would've done it! But peanuts were kind of outlawed from the house after that." He tried to keep his tone light, but he couldn't help the sad feeling that crept into his chest when he remembered his dad.

The feelings of melancholy and nostalgia did not last long in the face of Eridan's reaction, however. The other troll's eyes widened almost comically, and all color drained from his face. "Oh my cod, John, why didn't you warn me about this sooner? What if I accidentally picked one up an' brought it home? There's no glubbin' way I could live with myself if I got you killed, an' that's not countin' all the people who'd kill me right back!"

There was no way John could keep himself from busting out into laughter at the look on his friend's face. "Oh my god, Eridan, it's not like that! I have to actually eat them, and I know what they look like! It's when it's mixed in with other foods that I have to be careful. Jeez, relax." He reached out to scratch at the base of the troll's horns, keeping a steady smile on his face.

The happy little glubbing noise that he earned in response to that particular action gave John a pleasant thrill. "Haha, I guess you really like that, huh?" It dawned on him that maybe the whole horn-scratching thing was sort of sexual. It had never seemed like it to him, but he'd grown up human - what would he know?

"Yeah. It's somefin most trolls like." Yup. That niggling feeling that maybe it was a little more sexual than he'd originally thought was definitely something that he should pay more attention to. John pulled his hand away, trying to keep a smile on his face through his nervousness. Did he really see Eridan in a sexual way? With Karkat it was so easy to tell - it was entirely, blatantly obvious. But there was another sexual quadrant and that was more familiar romantic ground for him.

"Um, Eridan?"

"What's wrong, John?" Eridan looked up at him, frowning. Oh wow, were Eridan's eyes starting to change color? Wow, they'd look really pretty.

"I, uh. Do you like me?" Once the question was out, John felt his cheeks flushing. It was like he was back in elementary school with that one girl who kept trying to sit next to him during lunch, except maybe a whole lot worse because this was _Eridan_ , someone John had come to rely on and value as a really good friend. He felt like there was a lump of something heavy and indigestible sitting in the pit of his stomach.

The feeling didn't get better when Eridan just continued to stare at him. The corner of Eridan's mouth twitched before he responded. "Of course I glubbin' like you. It's not like I make a habit a goin' outta my way to invite people I hate platonically to my hive."

Ugh, why couldn't he just get a straight answer? John groaned and let himself sink entirely under the water for a few seconds. He wasn't at all surprised to feel Eridan swim closer. The feel of lips against his was _not_ something he'd been expecting, though, and his first impulse was to back away and surface for air.

It was Eridan that kept him under, though, prying his lips open with his tongue. But then there was air pushing into his mouth, and John tried to breathe it in. For a wild moment, he had to fight with his body not to thrash; even though he knew Eridan wasn't trying to drown him, breathing in when he was submerged still made him feel like he would suffocate. But his lungs filled with air, not water, and the urge dissipated.

John found the urge to thrash around replaced with another urge, one he was much more willing to give in to. He raised his arms, movements slowed by the warm water, and wrapped them around Eridan's waist. When the other troll didn't make any move to shake him off, John tugged him closer, until their bodies were pressed together from the waist up. There was a moment in which he felt Eridan stiffen just a little, then relax against him.

They stayed there for a few more moments, John enjoying how it felt to be so close and in his friend's natural element, but then Eridan pulled away and hauled them both up to the surface. "Um, wow. Haha, that was kind of cool. I didn't know you could do that!"

Before John could ask how Eridan had done it, he found Eridan's lips again on his. This time, they weren't underwater so John had no need for Eridan to provide him oxygen. It didn't stop him from using his tongue to nudge John's lips apart again, but instead of exchanging breath, Eridan ran his tongue lightly over John's fangs.

It was weird to be kissing a friend, especially because he only started hanging out with Eridan because he felt sorry for the sea troll. And even after all this time, John _still_ felt sorry for him, maybe even more than he had initially! But at the same time, it was kind of nice. He felt safe, like he could trust someone that no one else seemed to want to.

After a few minutes, John pulled back and rubbed at his lips. They felt sort of tingly and a bit ticklish. "I... Oh wow, I guess you do like me like that, then. God, this is weird." He looked up, watching Eridan tilt his head out of curiosity.

"What do you mean? I think it's pretty obvious you've been havin' a flush-crush on me for a while now. Fuck, everyone else can sea it."

"Wait, what? I don't... I don't know how I feel about you, Eridan!" John could feel the blood rushing towards his cheeks, but the sight of his friend looking so disappointed and upset and downright _pitiful_ made him stammer to try and clarify things just a little. "But I didn't mind the kiss! It was kind of nice."

Eridan pushed that really kind of endearing lock of purple hair out of his face, slicking all of his hair back with his hand. His eyebrows were drawn together, and his mouth was pressed into a tight line. "Listen, John, I know I oughtta count myself reely fuckin' lucky here, what with you spendin' time with me an' all, but..." He scrubbed at his face with the hand that had been in his hair, growling in frustration. "Fuck, you act like you're flushed for me an' then go an' say _that_ an' I don't even know what to think anymoray!"

Despite the irritation evident in Eridan's words and body language, John couldn't help but snicker. "Dude, that pun was totally stretching there. I'm kind of surprised it didn't snap and pop you in the nose like a rubber band."

"Yeah, well I don't sea you doin' any better," Eridan grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and sinking slowly back into the water until it covered him to his chin. Through the surface, John could see his gills flare as the sea troll switched back to breathing through them.

Between his words and the way his face scrunched up in disgust (like he'd just sucked on a whole grapefruit or something), John realized that Eridan was actually _sulking_. It made John's heart clench to realize that not only was Eridan sulking, Eridan was sulking because of things that _he_ had said and done. Here the sea-dweller was, spending most of his downtime alone with the exceptions of John and sometimes Rose. He'd become one of John's best friends in the time they'd been on this weird new mash-up planet, had done almost as much as Dave when it came to helping him accept his new circumstances.

All of those facts combined in John's chest to fill him with the visceral need to sling his arm around Eridan's shoulders and pull him close. Seeing no real need to resist it, John waded to where his friend had drifted to and did exactly that. He started with one arm looped around his shoulders, and when Eridan didn't move (other than to turn further away), John moved around to tug him into a full hug. "Hey, I'm sorry for being a jerk," he said. "I'm not sure about a whole lot, but I do know that you're my friend and that I do like you, okay? I don't want you getting down or upset, especially not because of me."

He relaxed a little when Eridan returned the hug, squeezing tight and all but cuddling into John's arms. It was pretty obvious that the sea troll had feelings for him, now that he actually thought about it. But was he really so obvious to everyone else? And, probably more importantly, should he listen to what everyone might say and go with Eridan in the hopes that his feelings would work out on their own, or put their friendship on hold until he got everything straightened out?


	13. Book 2: Chapter 2

It was hard being the leader of a group of morons, and nobody seemed to understand that. In all honesty, Karkat was sick and tired of taking on the role, but no one else wanted to step up and do anything about it - especially not now that tensions were strained because, of all things, the stupid weather.

But the level of the lake kept dropping and none of their crops were growing. The decision had been made to start rationing water, since there didn't seem to be an end to the draught in sight, and everyone was complaining about it.

Especially Strider.

"Dude, you know that when it's hotter than Satan's asshole like this, people actually need to drink _more_ water in order to keep from getting dehydrated, right? Why not stop watering the crops, because that's using up way more of our water than us just getting what we need. It's not like those plants are gonna make it anyways."

It may have been the heat, or it may have been that idiotic twang that laced Strider's words, but the only thing Karkat could think of was hauling off and punching the bulgemunch square in the nose. For the purposes of asserting dominance, of course. He bit back a snarl. "No one was fucking asking you, Strider. Shove off."

Dave shifted his stance a little and pushed his fucking ridiculous shades up higher on his nose. "Look, I'll be level with you here just this once. You tell me to ration water, that's cool. But the moment me or someone else starts getting dehydrated, that ration goes right out the window, got it? I don't care how much you'll bitch and moan, I ain't gonna let Sol or Terezi or fuck it even Spiderbitch die of heatstroke or dehydration just because you wanna get stingy."

There was no keeping the snarl off his face, and Karkat knew it. He whirled on Strider, lashing out to curl his fingers in the front of his stupid shirt. "Maybe it's escaped your tiny, bent little thinkpan, but the whole point of the rationing is because I actually don't want to see anyone die, no matter _how_ much more convenient my life will be without assholes like you in it."

Karkat should have seen it coming, but Strider's speed was unreasonable and stupid just like him, even when it came to something as simple as a punch. It wasn't sporting in the least - a filthy tactic for people that sulked around and never faced anything in a straightforward fashion. He dropped Dave and held his hands up to his bloodied nose to stem the flow.

"I'm guessing by the way you're acting about this that you've never seen people deal with dehydration before. Lemme tell you, it sucks major donkey balls. You think this heat is bad? Try not being able to sweat enough to cool off. Try getting headaches that make you pass out. I've lived in Assfuck, Texas my whole life, and my entire fucking land was nothing but lava and steel. I know what it's like to deal with heat, and what you _should_ be doing is quitting with the crops and focusing on the people!"

It was impossible for Karkat to tell which was more infuriating: the fact that Strider still continued to flap his jaw as if he thought Karkat gave a damn about the words or the fact that Strider was actually making sense. Not that he would ever admit to that much, because fuck Dave. "What, you think I fought tooth-and-fucking-claw to drag these assholes through the pisspot of a game that called itself Sgrub just to intentionally let them all die now that we've won? You don't like the way I do things, you can leave or you can man the fuck up and do better yourself!" He punctuated his challenge by spitting some blood that had seeped into his mouth at Strider's feet.

Something changed in Strider at that point. His entire face, neck, and even the tips of his ears turned a deep red. "The fuck did you say?"

It looked like he struck a nerve. Good. Karkat snarled, "Are your auricular sponge clots fucking obstructed? Because I'm pretty sure I didn't stutter. I said that you can either back the fuck off, leave, or man up and do it yourself."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Well you know what? I've dealt with little shits like you my whole life. I don't gotta put up with this kind of insult anymore. I fought tooth and nail to prove to everyone I'm just as much a man as any other guy, I ain't gonna let you, of all people, tell me I'm too much of a fucking girl to get things done. I'm out."

Karkat hadn't expected to see Strider just... walk away. Yes, he was hoping to push buttons and hit a nerve, but Dave had always taken his bait. Antagonizing him wasn't like antagonizing John - he only felt a horrible, nasty guilt at hurting him so deeply, as opposed to a thrill.

Goddammit. He took a few tentative steps in the direction Strider was headed. "Hey!" When Strider didn't even turn, the twisting feeling in his gut got worse. Fuck. Why had he thought that taunting Dave would be a good idea? Was he really so stupid and desperate to be rid of the "friendleader" role (he even included the sarcastic punctuation when he thought the word) that he was willing to steamroll the feelings of one of the people whom he was supposed to be keeping safe? _After_ that person had actually been talking sense.

Fuck, Past Karkat was a gigantic bulgelicking nooksniffer. Even Past Karkat of half a minute ago.

There was really only one reasonable thing for him to do (not that he'd been doing a good job of being reasonable so far today). If he remembered correctly, Tavros would be taking a break from tending animals today and would instead be helping John out in the fields trying to use the Windy Thing to save them. If they really _were_ going to abandon all thoughts of farming in this stupid hot season, it wouldn't matter if he dragged Tavros away from his duties for a while.

As he expected, Tavros was in the fields with John. For some reason, the idiot thought that it would be a good idea to work in the sweltering heat while wearing his moronic god-tier PJs, which were only made to look stupider by the bright blue flush of his face and the sweat stains under his arms and down his back. Karkat bit back a snarl before turning his attention to Tavros, who had done the sensible thing and donned a wide-brim hat secured to his horns so it wouldn't fly away in the breeze.

He approached Tavros, refusing to pay John more than just a cursory glance. "We need to talk," he said, not bothering with any further preamble. There wasn't any point in beating around the bush.

"Does this, uh, have anything to do with the crops?"

Irritation churned in Karkat's bile-sack, and his mouth opened before he had consciously formed a response. "Yes, of course, my whole miserable grubsucking life up until this point has revolved around these godforsaken crops. It is so inconceivable that I could possibly have other concerns that you will die of shock when I tell you that, no, it has nothing to do with them whatsoever."

At the unamused glare that Tavros shot him, Karkat took a deep breath, sighed, and started over. "Sorry. I need your official help as my auspistice. I think I might have kind of fucked up with Strider." Despite studiously avoiding glancing in John's direction, he still noticed him drift a little closer out of the corner of his eye.

Tavros frowned, setting his bottle of water down and crossing his arms. "Well, uh, I guess thanks for coming to me, but... I have to, ah, wonder what you did to piss him off this time."

Grimacing, Karkat toed at the parched earth. God, why did Past Karkat have to be such an idiot? And why did he have to drag that idiocy out in front of Tavros? "We were having a-- _discussion_ about the water situation, and I must have said something that made him get even more stone-faced than normal before he absconded."

A gust of wind nearly bowled Karkat over as John landed between him and Tavros. He brought a hand up to shield his eyes from the dust John's sudden anger whipped up. "What the hell did you say to Dave?" he demanded through grit teeth. Even with his stupid PJs, seeing John actually _angry_ like this sent a pleasant little thrill up Karkat's spine.

He steadfastly ignored it and kept his attention focused on Tavros. When Karkat had finally made it clear he was only going to acknowledge his auspistice, Tavros sighed and asked, "So, uh, what caused Dave to leave the, um, _discussion_?" It looked for a moment like he might raise his claws to form air-quotes around the word, but he seemed to think better of it.

Helplessly, Karkat shrugged. "That's just it, I don't have the first goddamn clue. I mean, I yelled at him for being a moron, but then he said something about... fuck, what was it? Something about being treated like a girl. Then he just fucked off."

John's expression shifted from anger to puzzlement, his brows furrowing as if he were thinking about something _very hard_. Tavros shrugged. "I guess I'll, you know, track him down and see what's up."

"I'll come with you. He probably won't talk to anyone right now, I'll see if I can get him to open up." John shot Karkat a nasty look before running off after Tavros.

Karkat hesitated a moment before calling out. "Hey! After you get done, there's going to be a meeting." He could hear John groaning in protest and stamped down a surge of anger. "This is important, we're going to discuss the water situation and whether or not we should keep trying with these crops." A tightness in his stomach eased as he said it. As much as he hated to admit it, Strider definitely had a point, and the prospect of not having to fret over stupid plants that refused to grow was a little appealing.

Tavros looked a little surprised, but he nodded. "All right. We'll, uh, be sure to bring Dave along. As soon as, you know, we're done talking to him."

"Yeah. Go do that and tell the little grubshit... he had a point. All right?" Hopefully, this whole thing could be cleared up and Dave wouldn't wind off running away on his own. Much as Karkat might have hated him, he didn't want to see him leave.


End file.
